After
by robbiepoo2341
Summary: "They would never go through with it if they knew." Cas knows what happens after they close the Gates of Hell. At least, he knows what happens for him (and he's not going to tell the Winchesters). But closing the Gates is more important than Castiel, and he is just going to have to deal with the consequences.
1. Chapter 1

So, I've started writing fics again. I was going to work on some other RL things, but this story has just taken hold of me.

Note: This story takes place at the very end of the series when they are closing the Gates of Hell. So, the first chapter picks up right as the Gates are closing, and the rest of the story deals with the aftermath.

Disclaimer: I own nothing related to Supernatural. The only thing I own is the story idea.

Cas knew. He had known for a long time, but no one had really called him out on it before.

But there was this boy—this _prophet_—who of course could see right through him.

Kevin Tran had been staring at him for some time. At first, Cas had not thought much of it. After all, they were both stuck in the back seat, and the Winchesters were doing that _thing_.

Dean called it preparation. Cas called it barely concealed panic.

The brothers had hardly spoken a word to each other. Dean turned the music on so loud that Cas knew conversation would be difficult using Jimmy's vocal chords. Not that he wanted—or needed—to talk to anyone. There had been plenty of talking before: about Naomi, about Heaven, about Crowley, about Hell.

But it had been a full thirty minutes now, and Kevin just kept staring at him.

Cas was quite certain that Kevin knew the truth. How could he not? He read the tablet, and he was giving the Winchesters instructions. But Cas could see behind this kid's eyes that he knew what this would mean. Which was probably why he kept staring at Cas.

He could still hear Naomi. _They would never go through with it if they knew_. And now he knew, but he would never tell them. Not until after.

"I think we should go to Vegas when all this is over," Dean said suddenly. He reached over to turn the music down just enough so that Sam could be heard, but Cas and Kevin would have to struggle.

"If we survive that long," Kevin said through his teeth. He was being particularly negative, but Dean said that was because Kevin's mom was elsewhere helping Garth run the distraction campaign. (Cas could believe that; he had met the woman, and she was as fierce as an archangel.)

Dean glared at Kevin in the rearview mirror. "_When _this is over," he said sharply, "Sam's taking you to Disneyworld."

"And leaving you there," Sam said, just loud enough that Cas could hear but not Kevin.

"I'm not twelve," Kevin said.

"Right," Dean said. He was smiling again, that weird smile that he did when he worked with anyone under age twenty. Cas liked that smile; it was not forced.

Cas knew why the brothers were talking again. He could see the church just ahead. The Impala was slowing down. Black smoke filled the air, and Cas could feel the hairs on the back of his neck standing up with the electricity of it all.

It hurt. He had never told the Winchesters that, but it hurt to be around so much evil. There was a kind of energy that came with being a demon. That was what the black smoke was, really—a physical manifestation of that energy. And it was like placing magnets next to each other. The energies repelled each other. Cas had always had a harder time fighting demons than anything else, but that was his job. When he was still a soldier, he fought demons because he had to. When he became a hunter, he fought them because he needed to. And soon, he would fight them because they would be trapped on this side of Hell when the doors closed. That didn't mean it didn't hurt; it just meant he got used to the hurt.

But the good part about the hurt? He knew exactly how many of them there were. He could feel that much power pushing back against the purer energy that was his grace. So, when he told Dean that there were two hundred and seven demons, that was exact, and he was confident in it.

Well, two hundred and eight. But he wasn't counting Crowley.

Dean turned the keys and opened the door to the Impala. Sam was close behind, and Cas had already transported himself out of the car. Kevin was having trouble. When Dean fixed up the Impala after the last clash with the angels, one of the replacement doors had a child safety lock.

Crowley inclined his head to look at Kevin, then looked back up at the Winchesters. "Hello, boys," he said. It was his usual greeting. He hardly looked at Cas. Once, they had been the bitterest of enemies. Now, Cas was swallowed up in the "Winchester associated" enemies section, especially after Naomi. Cas didn't mind being a lesser threat, though. The Winchesters were plenty to be reckoned with, and he didn't like to think there was a competition.

"Skip the pansy pleasantries, Crowley."

"Straight to the part where I kill you, then?"

"You can try," Dean said. He thrust his jaw forward—a nervous habit. He did it when he wanted to look bigger and distract them from the fact that he was still very much just a human.

And then there was black smoke everywhere. It pressed in around them, but mostly around the boys. Cas kept his arms around Kevin, even wrapping his wings around them both.

Stick to the plan. Stick to the plan. The Winchesters can hold their own. Stick to the plan.

He was practically carrying Kevin now. Every step he took was surprisingly easier. He could feel the power coursing through him, the power Naomi had promised. Heaven was ready to see the gates close, and Cas was the battery to make it happen. Of course he was. Who else could they have picked, considering?

"Sam!" he heard Dean shout. Cas reminded himself not to look. Stick to the plan. Besides, that was Dean's lost cry. He couldn't see his brother; that was it. There was a different cry entirely for when Sam was in trouble. That one was much worse.

"Dean!" came the response. At least they had found each other. But they sounded hoarse. Maybe he should go back and help them.

"Stick to the plan," Kevin Tran said. And he was right, of course. Dean must have said it a hundred times, and Cas was good at obeying orders—well, orders that were right—but this time was different. What if there was no after?

But he had tried to say goodbye before, in Purgatory. He wasn't very good at it.

There was light pulsing all around him—no, light pulsing from inside him, too. He could feel it: the grace of a thousand angels being poured inside him. Heaven wanted the gates closed, and he was the power source on Earth. There were no other angels around to do it; they had all returned to Heaven. They had to.

He tried not to think about it too much.

The demons could hardly touch him. He imagined this is what it felt like for the archangels. All this power. He could see how they would want to wield it. But he remembered the last time he had this much power, so he tried not to use too much of it until it was time. He remembered the Leviathons.

He kept his wings wrapped around Kevin. He had killed most of the archangels, after all, and so there was a little less protection for the little prophet. Heaven figured he could take care of it. Castiel, the basically-fallen angel. Protector of the Prophet and Friend of the Winchesters. Also occasionally Spy and Traitor and Genocidal Maniac. But sometimes Dean liked to pretend he didn't have those last titles. Unless he was mad. Or drunk. Or both.

Kevin Tran was shaking. He had been a prophet for four years now and still he was shaking under pressure. Cas held him tighter, because that was what Dean did for kids he saved, and it seemed to work. Kevin told him he was crushing him, though, so that didn't work.

"Think now's a good time?" Kevin asked. He did not look at Cas when he asked the question, not because he was scared, but because Cas was brighter than human eyes could handle now. This, of course, helped with the demon problem, but it made holding all that power in an issue.

"Now or never," he said. Already he was full to the brim, bursting with energy—so much energy that even just breathing required that he let off a little steam. A demon or two got vaporized just with that energy. That was good. He was tempted to breathe a little heavier and see if he could vaporize the ones nearest the Winchesters.

But, no. He was supposed to stick to the plan.

Kevin started the incantation. He pulled the ingredients out of his pockets. It had taken Cas a month to get all those things—he had been gone from the Winchesters for far longer than he or Heaven was comfortable with. And now Kevin Tran was about to light a month's worth of work on fire.

Crowley tried to stop him, of course. Once he realized that Kevin and Cas were the problem and not the Winchesters—though, of course, how could he even think that the Winchesters were not the main problem when he had their entire lifetimes' worth of experience to go on—he let out a shriek that would have pierced Kevin's eardrums if Cas had not been shielding him.

Cas stood up straighter. He let his wings expand. He let the light that was already blinding Jimmy's senses shine through those feathers. There was only the Crowley loose end to tie up. He and Kevin both knew that Crowley, of all the demons there, could stay on Earth if he wanted to. The King of Hell and all. "Decide," he said, and the voice that came out was so booming and deep that Kevin let out a cry of surprise and covered his ears. "You can stay here and be much less powerful, cut off from your source of power, or you can go back and be the king of your own little world." It sounded so good when he said it with that voice, not at all like he had been rehearsing it. Dean had a thing about witty retorts, and he had been working on sounding "awesome."

"You haven't got the juice," Crowley said, but the look in his eyes . . . . He knew.

"Castiel," Kevin said. He was ready. He held out the pieces of the spell. The bowl was flaming now. They just needed some serious power to weld them together. Cas reached for them, Crowley reached for Cas, and the mixture of dark and light exploded into color. He barely had time to shove Kevin Tran to the ground before the light and energy was pouring out of him.

Well, it was too late to stop it now.


	2. Chapter 2

This story is really flowing for some reason. I've been working on it furiously. Anyway, I wasn't expecting to get much of a readership, so, um, hi to all those people reading. Be nice to me? This is my first Supernatural fic and I'm still feeling out the voice and style.

Disclaimer: I still don't own Supernatural. Which is probably a good thing. I just own the story idea.

...

Dean was used to waking up in hospitals at this point.

He didn't feel like he was dying, though, so why was he here? He groaned and went to rip the tubes out of his arms and nose. He didn't need those.

Except his arm was much heavier than it should have been. And blue.

Great. A broken arm. This could be a whole new adventure. Maybe he could get Cas to heal it up later; he needed his good gun arm. (Not that he couldn't shoot with his left, but he favored the right side.)

His entire chest was pretty well busted up. He had bandages all down the front of him and stitches down his shins. But he could stand, and he could walk, so it was time to find his brother.

It took him much longer to put on his clothes than it usually would; he only had one hand to work with. But he was not about to go streaking down the hallways in just a hospital gown. Not unless the nurses here were hot, and he had yet to test out that theory.

He had managed to get his pants on when the doctor opened the door, looking down at his chart. Dean fell back just a bit so that he was sitting on the edge of his bed, then fixed the doctor with his best glare.

The doctor took a step back. "You're awake," he said simply. Then he pasted on that smile doctors usually gave when they were trying to have a bedside manner after several hours of surgery. It was dark outside; Dean knew all about the late-night shifts. "That's good. Your nephew will be glad to hear it."

Kevin. That explained it. Dean had not been able to see much of what had happened; he was just there for the blast of white light that pulled the demons away from him just as they were starting to reach bone. (Dean would have to thank Kevin for that good timing; that was definitely not a conversation he looked forward to.) But Kevin must have been the first to wake up. They had tried to train him up good, but he was still a squeamish little prophet, so he probably called 9-1-1 as soon as he saw any blood.

Dean put on his best smiling face for the doctor. He reached in his pants pocket for his wallet. "I assume you'll need my insurance?" he asked.

The doctor shook his head. "Your nephew insisted on paying for it. Said something about his mother recently coming into a lot of wealth."

Also not surprising. Mrs. Tran had taken to the con artist routine better than even Sam had. Dean just shook his head with a smile. "Right. Well, remind me to thank him," he said, reaching for his shirt. He was still wearing a hospital gown over his pants, and he was sick of it.

"Woah. Where do you think you're going?" the doctor asked.

Dean grimaced. He hated that "doctor voice." It was the voice that doctors gave five-year-olds. It meant the patient was doing something ill-advised or hard for the doctor to monitor. "I'm thirty-seven years old," he said. "I know how to check myself out."

"You're not fully . . . ." The doctor trailed off. His head perked up; he was listening to something.

Dean recognized the voice screaming down the halls, and he was out the door before the doctor could stop him. Even with stitched up legs, he was still faster. Even wearing a hospital gown.

"Cas!" Dean shouted when he reached the room. The lights were flickering, the power surging. One of the lights blew out. The monitors hooked up to his friend were in a frenzy. Cas was having some kind of seizure.

"Sir," one of the nurses said, seizing him by the shoulders, "I need you to stay back."

"That's my friend," he said. He could not think of a better argument. What was happening to Cas?

"Sir, we need you to step back. Let us do our job," the nurse said—more determined this time. She pushed him out the door and closed it in his face, but even through the solid door, he could hear Cas screaming, this time in words.

"No!" Cas shouted. "They're gone!" He kept repeating that over and over again: They're gone. They're gone. They're gone.

I'm right here, he wanted to say. But that sounded stupid out loud. And besides, it would sound even stupider if Cas was asking about someone else. Best not to assume things like that.

He stayed outside the door, not sure what to do, until he spotted a doctor. He ran up to him. "Excuse me?"

The doctor looked him over. He must have been a sight, really: still wearing his hospital gown but with worn jeans and a cast. Not to mention the stitches over his eye. "Yes?"

"I came in with some other people," Dean said. He pointed at Cas's room. "There was him, and there was my brother. Can you tell me where he is?"

The doctor frowned. He looked down at the folders in his arms, back up at Dean, then down again. "Ah yes," he said, still frowning. "You'll have to wait, I'm afraid. Your brother is still in surgery."

Dean's stitches were acting up; his legs went a little wobbly. He reached out to steady himself. "For what?"

"Massive internal bleeding. A collapsed lung. Concussion. I don't know what you hit, but that crash nearly killed your brother," the doctor said.

"But he's going to be okay, right?"

The doctor frowned again. "We've stabilized him for now. Give it time." He looked down at his charts again. "Look, I'm sorry, but I have to get back to your nephew—he should be released today. Would you like me to send him your way?"

"Tell him I'll be with my friend," Dean said. He pointed at Cas's room. He was no good at waiting, but at least with Cas he could wait by an actual bedside instead of in a waiting room.

"You could change your shirt," the doctor observed.

Dean looked down with a grimace, but then Cas started up his shouting again. "Hold that thought," he said. The door was open again (the nurses had tried to leave in between shouting matches; apparently, they thought it was over) and he slipped inside before anyone could stop him.

"You can't be in here, sir," said that same nurse.

"Eat me," he said right back. He pushed his way to Cas's side.

He had not been able to see Cas before, but it was much worse up close than he had imagined from the window looking in. He looked pale, sickly—human. If not for the deep voice that was still shouting about someone being gone, Dean would think they got Jimmy Novak back instead of Cas.

"Cas," he said. He turned to the nurse. "Can he hear me?"

The nurse looked back at him, and this time, she didn't look like she wanted to drag him out of the room by his hospital gown. "We're not sure. We can't tell what's wrong with him. All his readouts are perfectly normal." She sighed. "If we didn't know better, we would classify his symptoms as withdrawal, but we can't find any traces of drugs in his system."

Dean frowned. The lights stopped flickering, the monitors stopped their weird noises, and Cas settled back down. The nurses worked quickly to strap him back in—"so he can't hurt himself"—as Cas went back to muttering instead of shouting. They're gone. They're gone. They're gone.

The nurse sighed. "Any idea what did this to him?" she asked. "You were there, weren't you? The car crash?"

"Yeah," Dean said. Car crash. So that was what Kevin told them. But they wouldn't believe that unless . . . .

The Impala.

"How is she?" he asked.

"She?" the nurse repeated.

"My baby. The car," he said, more urgently.

The nurse stared at him for a while before understanding crossed her face and she folded her arms. "You did a spectacular job smashing her to pieces, sir. I'm surprised there's much left."

Dean muttered a few words under his breath that he knew even Cas would not approve of.

The nurse frowned at him again. "What did you do, anyway?"

"I don't remember," Dean lied. "I was just driving, and the next thing I know, the brakes aren't working and my steering's locked."

"You should take better care of your car," the nurse said.

Dean glared at her, but Kevin was standing in the door now, and the nurse was not worth his energy. He just shot her the dirtiest look he could manage before he was at Kevin's side. "So," he said, "car crash?"

Kevin nodded. "The demons totaled the Impala. I guess toward the end it was more about getting back at you then it was about trying to stop you."

Dean grimaced. And he had just put her back together last week, just finished buffing out the last of the demon damage. If those demons weren't already back in Hell, he'd kill 'em. But he shook his head. He'd address that later. "How's Sam?"

"Better," Kevin said carefully. "It was pretty touch and go there for a while." He looked pale and sickly, sort of like Cas, but in more of an "I'm going to be sick" kind of way. Kevin Tran was not good with hospitals. "What's wrong with him?" Kevin asked.

"No idea," he said.

"The doctors said they were only keeping him here until he woke up, but then when he stayed unconscious, they got worried," Kevin said.

"Yeah, that's another thing," Dean said. "How long have we been here?"

"Not sure," Kevin said. "I passed out after I called 9-1-1, but you've been out for almost two days since I woke up here."

"Two days," Dean repeated. "Great."

"They're gone," Cas muttered.

Kevin frowned, but said nothing. He just stared at Cas sadly, like he had seen this coming.

"Hey," Dean said, grabbing Kevin by the shoulders and spinning him around so that they were facing each other. "Hey, prophet kid. You got any idea what's wrong with him?"

"No."

"Don't lie to me," Dean growled. "You're not good enough to fool me."

Kevin just frowned and stared at Cas some more. "Look," Kevin said, "I'm just surprised he's even still here, so don't go asking questions I don't have the answers to."

"I thought you were supposed to know everything about this whole scheme."

A strange laugh forced its way out of Kevin's throat—it was more of a bark than a laugh. "Yeah, why? Because I'm a prophet?" There was that strange laugh again. "Not anymore, Dean. It's all gone. All that knowledge."

Dean glanced over at Cas. His angel definitely had a lot less power to him. Maybe Heaven had exhausted itself helping him? Was it even possible for Heaven to run out of fuel? He shook his head and sat down in the chair next to Cas's bed. Kevin stayed in the doorway. "What happened?" he asked.

Kevin shook his head. "The spell worked just like it was supposed to. The demons are all gone—well, except maybe Crowley, but he's not a pure demon, so . . . ."

"He's not what?"

Kevin shook his head again and even threw in a little hand wave to make extra sure Dean knew the question was not relevant. "Look, it doesn't matter. We closed the Gates, and it drained Castiel. He's probably just recovering."

"The nurses said he was going through withdrawal."

There it was. That look again. That little nervous swallow and the fist clench. Kevin knew much more about this than he was willing to say. But Kevin still just said, "I guess he had a lot of power running through him and it got the best of him."

"Kevin," Dean said. "He used to think he was God. He's had lots of power running through him before."

"Not this kind. Not the pure heavenly kind," Kevin said. But he kept his fists clenched, so Dean knew there was more to it.

"Excuse me?"

Dean looked up, and this nurse was much cuter than the last one. He straightened up. "Can I help you?" he asked with the sideways smile that always worked.

The nurse raised her eyebrows at him, and that was when Dean saw the ring. Of course. The good ones were always taken. "Are you Dean?" she asked.

He nodded.

"The doctors asked me to get you when your brother's surgery—"

"Where is he?" Dean was already on his feet.


	3. Chapter 3

No, but seriously. I've been writing all day. I'm going to stop soon and actually, you know, be productive this week. Maybe I'll just update lots on weekends? Anyway...

Disclaimer: I still don't own Supernatural. I do however, have a story idea.

...

Gone. Gone. Gone.

There was so much emptiness, a huge chasm. He could not hear them anymore—or feel them.

He had known that he would be completely shut off from Heaven, but he had no idea how painful it would be, like someone had ripped out a vital organ, or maybe his entire ribcage and all the organs in there.

He had never been alone like this before. Even in Purgatory, he was still connected, still aware of his brothers and sisters out there. But now there was nothing. Just a hole where thousands of angels used to be.

And then there was beeping. And thumping. Jimmy's heart going a mile a minute.

"They're gone!" he shouted, bolting upright, his eyes wide as he took in his surroundings. He was in a hospital—he recognized the décor.

And there was a very tired human next to him, his head resting on the bedposts, his cheek pressed up into his eye, who sleepily mumbled, "Yes, Cas. You've said. Who's gone?"

Cas was pleasantly surprised to find that not only was he still alive but so was Dean. The hunter was still asleep, really, hardly reacting to shouts that surely should have woken him. But he looked tired, drained. Cas peered closer, intending to look into Dean and see what was wrong so he could heal him, but the effort nearly knocked him out again. He puffed all the air out of his lungs and leaned back. Only then did he realize his hands and feet were tied down to the bed.

"Dean," he said.

Dean managed to peel his face off the post. He smiled sleepily. "Hey, Cas. You're awake."

"Yes I am." Dean liked to point out things that Cas already knew. "How are Kevin and Sam?"

"Kevin's fine. Just a couple bruises. Sam's doing better now, but the nurses won't let me in to see him until he's stable." Dean said it all so matter-of-factly, but Cas knew that look. The inner panic.

"Sam will pull through," he said. That was another thing he was learning—how to say what was not yet true but also not yet a lie. "You two have seen each other through worse."

Dean nodded numbly. "The spell worked," he said. He should have been more pleased, but Sam was in surgery.

"We knew it would."

"Crowley was pissed. You should have seen his face when you and Kevin lit up that smoke," Dean said with a grin.

Cas frowned. Yes, there was still the Crowley matter to clear up if he had decided to stick around. But they would get to that later.

Dean saw the frown and did not understand it. "You hurt, Cas?"

"What?"

"Being an angel battery. Did it do something to you?"

Cas laughed. "No. No, it didn't. If anything, it was . . . intoxicating."

"Cas . . . ." Dean's eyes narrowed. A warning.

"No reason for alarm," Cas said quickly. "It's gone. All of it." That last part stuck in his throat, and he was surprised to find tears. It still hurt.

Dean, eyes wide, reached out and put a hand on his shoulder. "Cas," he said again, this time a question and not a warning.

Cas took a deep, rattling breath. "I haven't got any . . . angel mojo anymore. It's all gone."

"How?"

Cas shrugged. "When we closed the Gates of Hell, we closed the Gates of Heaven, too. Earth must be balanced."

Dean just blinked at him for a while—the processing face. "Wait,' he said once he was ready to try speaking again. "Does that mean . . . . Can we . . . ?" He shook his head and tried again. "So what happens if someone dies? Is everyone on Earth going to be an angry spirit?"

"Dead humans go to Heaven or Hell, as they should," Cas said. "Human souls are different, of course. God would not close the Gate on His greatest creators."

Maybe Dean could sense the bitterness in Cas's voice, or maybe he had already worked out what Cas knew. He frowned so deeply that his whole forehead wrinkled, too. "What about you?"

"What about me?"

"How are you going to get back?"

There is was. The Question. Cas had rehearsed this conversation a hundred times in his head, and it was still terrifying. He took a deep breath. "I can't."

Now Dean was staring.

"That's why the angels were so concerned with your efforts to close the Gates. That much light energy expelled at once would expel demons but trap angels—sort of the opposite effect."

"Thus the mad rush for the life boats," Dean said. "I wondered why all the angels left."

"Naomi wanted the Gates of Heaven closed just as much as the Gates of Hell. Angels who come to Earth nowadays . . . they don't necessarily come back to Heaven with the same ideals Heaven wants instilled in them.

Now Dean was grinning at him stupidly.

"What?"

"Nothing," Dean laughed. But then he frowned again. "Seriously, Cas. How are you getting home again?"

"I told you. I'm not," Cas said.

Dean stared at him. He had not yet processed it. He started to say something, opened his mouth, then stopped, shaking his head. He had nothing to say.

"That's fine," Cas said. "I can still do some things on my own. I know how to shoot."

Dean gave him the sideways smile that he usually reserved for other people. "It'll be like teaching Sam all over again."

Cas frowned at the comparison. "I am not a child," he said.

"I never said you were."

"I know how to shoot a gun. I can use a knife. I've been hunting with you and Sam for a year now; I think I've picked up a few things. And I'm still an angel. I can't be killed easily."

"I know," Dean said, holding up a hand. He shook his head. "I just meant . . . ." He trailed off, his eyes on the nurse in the doorway.

Cas looked up at the nurse, too. She was not Dean's type, so there was only one reason he was looking at her like that. "Sam?" he asked, since Dean could not seem to ask.

The nurse nodded with a kind smile that wrinkled her eyes even more. "He's awake now."

And then Dean was gone, off in an instant to play big brother and sit beside Sam, to stand by the one thing he lived for. Cas smiled; it was good for Dean to go to his brother. He would be fine here.

The nurse inclined her head at Cas after Dean left. "Good to see you're awake," she said.

"Yes. It's good to be awake," Cas said. "Could you . . . umm . . . ." He lifted his hands to show her the straps.

"I'll talk to the doctor," the nurse nodded.

Cas sat back. He was good at this. Sitting. Waiting. He had been doing that for most of humanity's lifetime. Sitting. Waiting. Watching. Never acting, never moving.

Yeah. He was bored.

If he'd still had his connection to heaven, he could have just busted through the straps. He frowned. Not even a minor miracle? Really?

"Takes some getting used to, doesn't it?"

"I was wondering if you'd show up here," Cas said. He glared and heaved against the straps, but to no avail. "Waiting until the danger was gone?"

Crowley smiled. He reached up to play with some of the instruments wired up to Castiel. "You of all people should know, Castiel. We've been cut off from our sources of power. Baby steps, my old friend." He stared at the monitor until it flipped itself around, then smiled triumphantly. "And there you go."

"I see you decided to stay."

"You thought I'd go back to Hell? That place could run on its own without me." Crowley shrugged. "Much more fun to stay out here and run the show than to sit on the throne and never apply myself."

"And here I thought you were all about the power trip."

Crowley laughed. "I'm still King of Hell, King of the Crossroads."

"An absent king?"

"You followed one of those for thousands of years," Crowley pointed out. He stared up at the lights until they blew out, then smiled again.

"You're cut off from Hell. How are you—"

"How can I still have power?" Crowley laughed. "You forgot your own fairy tales, Castiel. The powers of Heaven and Hell in one being?" He laughed again. "You never could beat me."

"Did you just come here to gloat?"

Crowley paused as if to consider it, then nodded. "Yes, I think so. That and I was curious. Wanted to see how many of your favorite pets survived."

"All of us," Kevin Tran said from the doorway. He was holding a water bottle, but even without his enhanced senses, Cas could tell it was full of holy water. He glanced over at Cas. "What? You thought we were just going to leave you alone and tied up in a hospital? How stupid do you think we are?"

Cas could not help smiling. Kevin had always been his to protect, but in the past years, he had grown, had even protected the Winchesters and, sometimes, rarely, Castiel himself. Cas was supposed to be the protecting angel, but sometimes, well, it was the other way around. It was that way with Dean, too, but even more so.

"Look who's all grown up and protecting his angel," Crowley said. He glared at Kevin, then at Cas. "No matter. Just thought I'd stop by and offer a 'get well' card of my very own." With that, he disappeared.

Kevin narrowed his eyes at the spot where Crowley once stood. "I thought he was supposed to be powerless."

"What did he mean?" Cas asked as Kevin moved to unstrap him.

"What?"

"He said he was leaving a 'get well' card," Cas said. "What did he mean?"

Kevin frowned. "I don't know."

Cas pulled himself free and rubbed his wrists. They were red, and they hurt. He was going to have to get used to things like that. But then, if Crowley could still use his powers . . . . He must be using something to give himself a boost, and if he could do it, so could Cas. "I say we look in on the Winchesters," he said, swinging himself over the bed. He grabbed the familiar trench coat and draped it over his shoulders. Surprisingly, the rest of the suit did not come with it.

Oh, right. Changing clothes. He'd done that before, the last time he was at a hospital. It was tricky. The tie was the hardest part, but he had managed to get it on the right way—though Dean kept trying to tighten it and choke him.

But he could worry about ties later. There was a calling card to think about, and with Crowley, that was never a good thing.

Kevin, to his credit, managed to keep pace with Cas as they jogged down the hallway. He kept staring at his defending angel with the same look he had been giving him in the Impala, so Cas could not help snapping at him. "What?" he asked.

"Just, nothing," Kevin said. "How you holding up?"

Dean had asked him the very same thing, but he hadn't sounded so disappointed about it. Kevin had always been like that, though. Dean had really talked him up. "The only angel I don't wanna smoke," he'd said. So now Kevin thought he was some kind of hero, and whenever he did anything, even the smallest thing, that didn't live up to it, Kevin gave him this look that said: "Clearly, Dean was wrong about you. You're just like the rest of them, aren't you?"

But Cas was sick of proving himself to Kevin Tran. "I'm fine," he said.

"Really? Cuz you didn't look fine."

"I said I was fine," he said, louder this time. They rounded the corner. Sam's room was just there. It would only take them a few minutes to peek in and.

_Crash_.

Cas jumped in surprise. The sound came from Sam's room. And without even thinking about it, without trying, he found himself right in the middle of the room, blinking in surprise as Dean tried to bash in a vampire's skull with his cast while his knife lay on the floor. Sam could hardly keep his eyes open, much less move to help his brother, so Cas reached into his trench coat for his blade.

Slice. He cut the creature's head clean off.

Dean dragged himself to his feet and wiped his mouth. "Perfect timing, as always, Cas," he said, grasping him by the shoulder once more. "But I thought you said you were out of angel mojo?"

"I am," Cas said. He frowned. "I don't understand."

"Well, don't look a gift horse in the mouth," Dean said with another sideways smile. "Want to give me a hand with Sam here? We can't stay in this place. We're sitting ducks if the monsters know we're here."

"Dean," Cas said.

Dean was busy with his brother, who was still coming out of a drug-induced haze. It probably was not a good idea to move him. "Seriously, Cas, just angel-poof us to Garth's place."

"Dean," Cas said, more insistently.

"What?"

"Dean, I can't. I don't know how."

Dean frowned. "You can't?" He wasn't processing this. He was in Protect Sammy mode, and how could anything get in the way of that? How could Cas _not _help him protect Sam?

And then Kevin Tran came bursting in through the door, holding up his bottle of holy water like a battle standard.


	4. Chapter 4

Disclaimer: I still don't own Supernatural or anything related to it.

...

Cas was actually sleeping. That was weird.

And Dean really wasn't trying to creep. It was just that it was his turn to keep watch in their cramped little hospital room, and he had never seen an angel sleep before. Cas didn't really know how to do it, with his head hanging off the end of the chair and his feet propped up on the windowsill. His face was turning purple, and he was snoring. He hadn't even started out that way. He'd seen sleeping humans before; he knew how it was supposed to be. He had somehow turned himself that way while snoring.

"Cas." He bumped the chair with his foot to try and wake him up. No good. It just made the snoring louder. He sighed and threw his hands in the air. How was he supposed to keep watch when he was already annoyed?

Luckily, there was a knock on the door. Three times fast, then two long. That was the signal. He crossed the room and peeked through the door. Garth.

He had really been hoping for Mrs. Tran, actually.

He picked up Kevin's water bottle and threw it at Cas. The angel jerked awake, eyes wide, then put a hand to his head. "Ugh. My head is thumping."

"You were sleeping upside down."

"It was comfortable."

"Yeah, well, don't do that," he said. He jerked his head in Sam's direction. "Watch out for this one? I'm gonna have a chat with Garth here."

Cas nodded.

Dean closed the door behind him. "Whatcha got?" he asked.

"I've got a couple friends of mine down at the ambulance dock," Garth said. He tugged at Bobby's cap; it still didn't really fit him. "And Mrs. Tran snuck into the records to find out what medicines we need to take with us."

"And you're sure moving him won't kill him?" Dean asked.

"Pretty positive."

"Pretty positive?" Dean grabbed Garth by the lapels of his ridiculous jacket and hoisted him up. "Look, Garth. That's my brother. And if your plan isn't 100% safe, he's staying right here and I'll sit in that chair right there for a year before I move him."

Garth swallowed. "He'll be fine," he said, but he was stuttering.

Dean relaxed his grip and set Garth back down on his feet. He still didn't like it, but Garth was relatively reliable. "Fine," he said at last, practically spitting the word out through his teeth.

Garth nodded and brushed out the wrinkles Dean had created. "So, Crowley," he said with that usual smile and back-to-business-as-usual goofiness.

"Not now."

"Right. Okay," Garth said. He jerked his head in the direction of the hallway. "I'll send in a few friends to come pick up Sam. They'll be dressed as doctors, so only let them in if they do the knock."

"I got the plan," Dean said.

"Just checking," Garth said. He sounded like a girl, so offended at his tone of voice or whatever. "Look, Dean—"

"Scram, Garth." Dean pointed down the hallway. He was not in the mood. He had to get his brother out of this hospital, and he had to do it before more monsters came around. They had a relatively short period of time in which to work; the sun was setting and the doctors would only be tied up in surgery for so long.

He came back inside to find Cas staring intently out the window, perched up on his toes in his seat. He decided not to ask.

"Seen anything yet?"

"Nothing so far," Cas said.

"Well, just keep at it," Dean said. He could not help smiling; Cas was a little overeager sometimes, and he stuck to a task like glue. At least he could be relied on.

Sam stirred, and Dean rushed to his side. "Hey, Sammy," he said, slowly, hesitantly. He was still not sure if his brother was really awake or just drugged.

"Dean," Sam said with such a big, dopey smile that Dean knew his brother was still pretty high. "Dean, we blew them all up."

"Yes we did."

"Poof!"

Dean grimaced. (And Cas was grinning now. He thought the whole thing was hilarious. That was just great, wasn't it?) "I can't decide if you're more fun this way or more annoying."

"I like him," Cas said.

Dean just rolled his eyes.

Sam looked around at his surroundings, then grimaced when he tried to move too fast. Dean recognized the concentrating look on Sam's face; he was trying to bring himself back to reality. "Hey," he said. "I've got stitches."

"Uh-huh," Dean said.

"Lots of them."

"Yep."

Again with the concentration face. Sam pursed his lips. "So that means we're still alive?"

"Very good, Sam."

"That's good."

"Uh-huh." Dean could see people outside the door. There was a knock—three times fast, two times slow. He threw one of Sam's pillows at Kevin, who snorted awake. "Hey, Prophet Boy."

"You know, I have a name," Kevin grunted. He was too tired for nicknames or jokes; Dean knew from experience the kid wasn't good at mornings or waking up.

"Yeah, yeah. Go open the door for our friends, okay?"

Kevin muttered something under his breath, but he went to the door anyway. Garth's friends came in with a gurney, and Dean grabbed Sam's arm. "Hey, listen, Sammy."

"Listening," Sam said. But then he giggled, so there was no telling if he was totally there.

"We're gonna get you out of here. Crowley's still sticking around somehow, and he's out for us, Sammy. We got a bounty on our heads."

"That happens to us a lot, doesn't it?"

"Freakin' delightful." Dean nodded his agreement. "But now we gotta get you out of here. We already ganked a vamp and a shifter."

"I missed all that?"

"Yep. Good ol' Sammy. You always sleep through the best parts."

Sam giggled again.

The hunters were looking at Sam weird as they hoisted him into the gurney. They had obviously never seen Sammy drunk. And Dean understood; it was hard to believe Sam Winchester could live up to the hype when he was this high. But he wasn't there to hold their hands; he was there to protect his baby brother.

Cas kept watch as they walked out the door. He was walking backward, keeping his eyes peeled. The other hunters were vigilant, too, but not like he and Cas could be.

He stayed by Sammy's side the whole time. "We're gonna take you to Garth's place. We're gonna watch out for you."

"'Course you are. Always do."

Dean grinned. That was his Sam. Never could just thank him unless he was high.

They made it to the ambulance dock, and Garth was there to help them inside. Dean stayed in the back, and so did Cas, but Kevin climbed in the front with Garth. (Kevin and Garth always got along better than he and Kevin did. Dean was usually good with kids, but Kevin . . . .)

The door closed behind him, and Cas stopped keeping watch. He turned to Sam, and the look on his face was so genuine it was surprising. "How's he doing?"

"I'm great!" Sam said earnestly. It was freakin' adorable.

Cas smiled. "That's certainly good to hear."

"Cas," Dean said. "He's high."

"At least he's not in any pain."

"Oh, just you wait." Dean knew what happened when the drugs wore off, and grumpy Sam was sometimes even more fun than happy Sam, if you knew what buttons to push.

"No need to sound so pleased about it," Sam said.

Dean laughed again. It was nice to laugh for once; the Gates were closed, the demons were gone, and even with a price on their heads, Dean felt so much less pressure than usual. Monsters? They could handle that. That was what they used to do. He'd done that for a year in Purgatory, and he was beyond professional. It was almost small potatoes.

He didn't remember falling asleep, but the next thing he knew, Cas was shaking him awake. Sam was asleep again, too, and they had arrived at Garth's place. (He had moved to a little . . . well, the word was "fishing shack" if Dean was being honest about it.)

It was actually kind of weird, not looking over his shoulder for the next demon, not checking around every corner. It took him a good five minutes to settle down and stop checking all of Garth's protective charms and signs. (It wasn't that he didn't trust the kid to do a good job; it was that he hadn't relaxed in ten years.)

But now Sam was sleeping peacefully in the panic room, and he and Cas had the chance to sit down. And he still wasn't done.

"Dean," Cas said. "Before you start—"

"Did you know about this before we closed the Gates?" Dean demanded. Never mind that Cas already knew he was going to start in.

"Dean—"

"Did. You. Know?"

"Yes. I knew the spell would drain me and cut me off from heaven."

Dean threw his hands up and turned his back on Cas to give himself a few seconds to process.

Cas tried again. "Dean, I knew the risks going in. Naomi told me I might burn myself out. I just did not anticipate the psychic repercussions of being cut off from thousands of minds."

"You've been cut off before."

"Not like this. There's not even an imprint. I can't _feel _them anymore. In my head." Cas pointed to illustrate his story. "They're gone."

There it was. "They" were gone. The angels. He shook his head and turned around. "You should have said something."

"And what? Jeopardized the mission?" Cas shot right back at him. "Would you have really gone through with it if you knew?"

"Knew what? That your lights would go out?" Dean shook his head. "Can't imagine _why _you would think that might bother me."

"I know you think I'm useless—"

"No," Dean held up a hand. "No. That's not the point. Cas, you've been going through withdrawals. I've never seen you like that." Dean shook his head. And people said that _he_ had a dangerously codependent sibling relationship. Freakin' angels.

Cas was quiet.

"That's not even what bothers me," Dean said. He could feel his frustration building. "Cas, we've been through this before. Remember what happened last time you tried to hide the truth from me?"

Cas was quiet again.

"We could have found a way to get you home."

"It had to be me!" Cas shouted. Usually, when Cas shouted, his voice just got louder, but his face didn't show it so much. But this time, his face was a little redder. His neck bulged a bit. Then, he frowned, and he shook his head. "Look, it had to be an angel. Someone had to stay behind and direct all that energy. And it might as well be me, right?"

"Cas—"

"The angel who loved humanity too much. That's me," Cas laughed drily. "I like Earth. I could live here on my own."

"Forever?" Dean ran his hands through his hair. "What are you gonna do when me and Sam are dead? When Garth's gone? When Kevin's dead?"

"I have a plan," Cas said.

"What? Avenging angel all by yourself?" Dean laughed. "You and your half-finished hunter training?"

"I'm not helpless." Cas's face turned red again. "You think I am, but I'm not your responsibility anymore. I used to be the leader of an entire garrison of angels, Dean. Or don't you remember?" His entire chest puffed out, and in that moment, Dean could swear he saw black wings. Even the lights started to flicker.

Dean just grinned. "Atta boy."


	5. Chapter 5

A/N: I really have no idea how long this fic will be, but I have a lot more planned so bear with me. Slower chapters are necessary.

Disclaimer: I still don't own Supernatural.

...

It was like learning to fly all over again. Like he was nine hundred again. Embarassing.

"C'mon, Cas. We know you can just angel-poof yourself around." Dean poked at him again with the yardstick. And he was the one with personal space issues.

"That was a fluke, Dean," he said for the eight-hundredth time. "I exhausted my powers closing the Gates. I shouldn't have anything left."

"Well, obviously you do, and so does Crowley, so eat me."

Cas sighed. Sam was still recovering, and Dean was climbing the walls, so he needed something to do. And for some reason, he had decided to take Cas under his wing—so to speak—and help him reach the powers that used to come so easily.

That was the thing. It used to be easy. Even when heaven cut him off before, he was still connected. Heaven was like a lighthouse, guiding the way in his head; he didn't have to be actually inside it or in communication with it to use its energy. All his powers were routed through that connection, even when he was on his own.

There were some things he could do still. Healing? That was practically automatic at this point; he had used it so often hunting with Sam and Dean. He could still fly; his wings were not Heaven-dependent. It wasn't as fast as teleporting, but he could outrun the Impala. And teleporting—angel-poofing, as Dean called it—was the next step. He might even work his way back up to smiting eventually.

It hurt this time, though. Miracles had never hurt him before, but the source of energy was gone. Like pulling the plug on Sam's laptop. Dean seemed to think Cas still had batteries to run on, that he didn't need the wall plug, but Cas knew different. He had tried to explain it, but it was harder in English, even with the analogy.

And there was no telling how long he could run. Even in Purgatory, he had needed that connection. Even if Heaven wasn't helping him, it was the source of light energy. Same reason Crowley had no power. Hell was the source of darker powers. Witches, demons, they were going to be so much less powerful now. But so were angels and wiccans. No more pure light, no more pure darkness. Earth was much greyer now.

But Dean never listened to things like that. Like reason. So Cas was standing in the living room trying to teleport into the kitchen. Just a few feet, and it was still hard.

"How did you do it in the hospital?"

Cas shook his head. "I told you I don't know." He had long ago abandoned his attempts to explain himself to Dean.

"Figure it has something to do with instinct," Sam said. He poked his head out from the bedroom, hobbling his way over on his crutches. "That's how my powers started out. When I first started, it was more like I could use them when I was more motivated, stressed out, hyped up on adrenaline."

"And demon blood," Dean pointed out. "You got the angel equivalent?"

Sam glared at his big brother, so Cas tried to smile at him to show Sam he appreciated the effort. He knew Sam meant well. And Dean never had powers, so of course Sam was the more logical choice for a tutor. (Not that Dean responded to logic when his friends were in play.)

The truth was he already had a good plan to get himself back into heaven. Almost guaranteed success. The problem was the time it would take, and he wasn't sure what it would do to him, or how Dean would handle it when he approached him about it. So his heart wasn't really in the game. He was only really sticking around until he was sure the Winchesters were safe from Crowley. After that, he would leave. He'd be gone for months, which was why he couldn't leave until the boys were safe.

_Crash_.

That was the window breaking, and that was the unmistakable snarl of a vampire. Cas didn't even think about it. He was just standing in the kitchen all of a sudden, his blade in hand, ready to slit the throat of whatever filthy vampire thought he could get away with . . . .

Wait.

"Benny?"

Benny threw back his head and laughed, holding his hands up in mock surrender. "How's tricks, Cas?"

Cas glared. "I could have killed you, Benny." Then, almost an afterthought: "And don't call me that."

"Yeah? I'd like to see that," Benny said. He just grinned and looked pleased with himself. It was little wonder he and Dean were friends. When he finally realized Cas was still glaring at him with an intensity that, if he had his full powers, should have melted him, he laughed again. "Look, it wasn't my idea. Sam thought if we got a—what was it, Sam?"

"Fight or flight response," Sam said. He was smiling, too. (The traitor. Cas thought he and Sam were on the same side when it came to Benny.) "It worked, didn't it?" Great. Now Sam was also curing his boredom by trying to "fix" Cas.

Cas knew it had worked, but he just glared at them anyway and gripped the blade even harder. "Don't do that."

Now Dean was in the doorway, and he was laughing too. Cas hated that, hated when they would all laugh at his expense. He was not doing anything wrong, and they were the ones who wanted him to think for himself, so why force decisions on him like this? Why force him into powers that he knew—he _knew_—he was not going to have for much longer if his plan worked?

Dean saw the look on Cas's face and tried his best to stop laughing, mostly just to placate him. "Sorry, Cas," he said. He didn't look it, but then, Dean rarely said he was sorry for real.

"Of course you are."

Benny laughed again, then turned to Dean. He glanced out the window, then around the room at all the charms and wards meant to keep out things like him. "I didn't just come because Sam called," he said, addressing Dean instead of the rest of the group. That was Benny's way; laugh and joke, but get the job done as fast as possible and take care of himself.

"I figured it would take more than a prank to pull you out of hiding," Dean laughed. "Where you been holed up, anyway?"

"Somewhere none of your hunter friends can find me, thanks," Benny said. "Mostly I just stopped by to tell you you've got a bounty on your head so big I even thought about going after you myself." Benny laughed. "Woulda put some good money in the blood bank."

Cas didn't think it was funny, but Dean laughed anyway. "Figures. It's no big deal, Benny. We've dealt with worse." Dean looked Cas's way and gave another sideways smile. This one was his "we're sharing a secret" look—he was thinking about their time in Purgatory and the beacon he and Cas had been to every monster in that place, an invitation to kill.

"Still, I thought I should warn you. The underbelly community ain't been this worked up in a long time."

"Nothing we can't handle," Dean said, more firmly this time.

"I don't doubt you, brother," Benny said. He gave Dean another long look. "You should know that not all the monsters are gonna follow through with that bounty. Not everyone's sad the demons are gone."

"Of course," Cas said. "Demons are pushy. They don't care about other creatures, and they don't tolerate competition for human resources."

"You got that right," Benny said, and his tone of voice suggested he had previous experience. But he didn't elaborate.

"Great. Now we've got more monsters on our side," Sam said. He opened the fridge to grab himself a beer now that the excitement was over (he threw Dean one, too). "Because that always works so well."

"I have to agree with Sam," Cas said. (Sam looked at him like a deer in the headlights. Lately, they hadn't been agreeing on much of anything.) "How is this a good thing?"

Benny shrugged. "Depends how you look at it, I guess. You don't have monsters on your side, not really. They're just not trying to kill you."

"That's comforting," Dean said.

"Anyway," Benny said, "just wanted to stop by and tell you what's happening down my side of the country." He shrugged. "Ain't no use in my sticking around to get killed by them hunter friends of yours."

Dean shook his head. "Nobody's gonna hunt you around here, Benny. Not without my say-so." (He glared at Sam, but then, Benny had always been a sore spot between them, and everyone knew it, Benny included.)

"I don't want to wear out my welcome," Benny said, eying both Cas and Sam. It was one thing to be in the neighborhood and play a friendly prank, another thing to hang around like part of the gang—which he wasn't, at least not according to Cas and Sam, but he was according to Dean. Sore spot.

"I'll find you a place to stay the day," Dean insisted. "Sun's coming up in less than an hour anyway, and if we've got a contract out on us, we don't want a known associate of ours getting stuck somewhere uncomfortable."

Cas shook his head. It was hard to argue with Dean when he made sense.

Benny looked long and hard at Dean before he realized what the rest of them already knew: there was no talking Dean out of something once he had made up his mind. "Sure. Why not? I could use a place to crash."

Dean smiled and led his friend through the cramped fishing shack. There were hammocks and cots to be claimed, windows and blinds to be closed, before Benny could be completely moved in, and Dean was doing what he did best: taking care of his friends. Cas frowned as he watched Dean smiling and joking with Benny; this was not a good idea, bringing a vampire into the middle of a group of hunters.

"Cas?"

Cas turned toward Sam, his head tilted to one side.

"You doing okay?"

Cas almost smiled at being asked such a question by a man who had to get around on crutches, who had been so completely out of it that he dissolved into several giggle fits over the past few days. "I'm perfectly fine," he lied.

"Uh-huh," Sam said. Dean was right about The Look. It was hard to lie when Sam gave him The Look.

Cas sighed. "Don't worry, Sam. I have a plan."

"Really?" Sam was still giving him The Look; if anything, opening up about his plan made The Look worse. "And were you planning on letting us into this plan, or were you planning on flying solo again?"

"I haven't worked it out yet," Cas said. "Not all the details. Besides, I can't leave just yet."

"Why not? We're not stopping you."

"There's Crowley—"

"You let us worry about him," Sam said. "It's not like we haven't had to put up with him for years. We're actually pretty good at it now."

Cas shook his head. "I don't want to leave you vulnerable so soon after closing the Gates. Look at you; you're in no condition to fight of monsters."

"Hypocrite," Dean's voice said behind him.

He spun around. "Dean." His friend was standing there with his arms folded and a frown so deeply cut into his forehead that even his shoulders drooped. Cas was definitely losing his touch; he had not even known Dean was standing back there.

"You've been saying this whole time that you can take care of yourself, that you don't need our help, and you won't even help yourself because you don't trust us to handle our own crap?" Dean said. "Really, Cas?"

"You don't have all the information."

"Then enlighten me!" Dean held out his hands.

Cas sighed. How could he even start? There were so many points Dean would argue with him on. The name in John Winchester's journal. The people who would almost definitely be involved. The pieces of Dean's past that he wouldn't want to dig up again. Cas knew his plan was a selfish one; it demanded so much of Dean. He couldn't ask that of him so soon after nearly getting him killed.

So, he would wait. He looked Dean in the eyes, holding that stare, matching the intensity of his gaze. "Dean, I'm asking you to trust me."

Dean stared back at him. It had been such a long time since Cas had refused to tell him something. Cas had done everything he could to be honest with the Winchesters. He told them everything. When he found out what was happening with Naomi, they knew seconds later what he knew. When he found Kevin, the Winchesters knew. When he learned that Crowley was holding Samandriel, the Winchesters knew. And now he was just asking them to let him hold his peace until he had some definite answers to give.

Finally, Dean looked away. "Okay," he said, throwing up his hands. "Fine, okay. You win."


	6. Chapter 6

A/N: I really have no idea where the show's going to head in terms of its mythology, but this is my personal version of things. It's probably not what the showrunners are planning, but hey. That's what fanfiction is.

Disclaimer: I still don't own Supernatural or any related rights.

...

It had been almost three weeks, and Dean was so ready for Sam to be back to normal. Those crutches were dangerous, long-range weapons, and they were an unfair advantage.

Dean dodged the crutches again with a huge grin. "Can't catch me, Sammy."

Sam just growled at him, annoyed into giving up the chase. "You are so dead, Dean," he said, but it sounded so much less threatening through the mouthful of toothpaste.

They hadn't done this in a while. Maybe it was the cramped quarters and the lack of other things to do, or maybe it was the relief of not carrying some great burden—the Apocalypse, the fate of the world, closing the Gates of Hell—on their shoulders. Or maybe it was having his whole family together that made him so comfortable.

It was nice to just get back to normal hunting. So some monsters were out for their heads. That wasn't anything new. Monsters were so much easier to fight, anyway. They weren't wearing humans, so he didn't have to pull his punches.

Dean could hear Sam gargling in the bathroom, trying to get the salt taste out of his mouth. He'd pay for that later, but he couldn't stop grinning, so it was definitely worth it.

"Good to see you haven't lost your sense of humor in all this," Benny said from his hammock in the corner. All the blinds were closed in that room, which helped disguise that pouch Benny was drinking from. (Dean still wasn't used to seeing his friend drink blood. If anyone had asked him before Purgatory if he would have befriended a monster like that, he would have laughed long and hard.)

Benny had decided to stick around for a while—to the horror of everyone else but Dean. But it was their fault he was in danger. It was no secret the Winchesters had taken a special interest in Benny, and the monsters looking for them seemed to think Benny would lead them to Sam and Dean. (Sam seemed to think Benny might actually do that, too. He'd known the guy for years now and still didn't seem to grasp the concept that Benny was trustworthy. But even that mistrust had its uses; Sam wanted Benny to stay with them, not to keep him safe, but to keep him close and away from monsters that he could sell them out to.) It had been interesting having him around, but Dean was pleased anyway. It was nice to have the whole gang together.

Dean grinned across the room at Benny. "Can I help it if I'm bored?"

"Just so long as you only bug your brother. Keep the pranks in the family," Benny said.

"What, you afraid you're gonna get a Kool-aid packet instead of blood one of these days?"

Benny made a face. "You're lucky I'm too tired to come after you." He leaned back. "Not that I'm against pranks as a rule, mind. But I'm not stepping in with you and Sam for nobody. I know better than that."

"Suit yourself," Dean shrugged. "Long night, then?"

Benny laughed again. "You could say. We were running low on AB-."

"I forgot; that's your favorite." Dean made a face.

"Hey, I try not to bring it up if you don't ask. I know you've got a sensitive girl stomach."

Dean glared at his friend, and Benny just grinned right back at him so broadly that Dean could not help but cave and grin back.

Dean made his way through the shack, past the table where Cas was usually perched, writing furiously in handwriting that could only be described as calligraphy (he didn't let anyone see what he was working on, but it looked important). He finally made his way down into the kitchen for some breakfast, but when he opened the door, he was hit with smoke. "Cas!" he bellowed, waving the smoke away.

The windows were already open, and Cas was just standing there in the middle of it all, looking lost. "I don't understand," was all Cas could say for himself as he held up a package of precooked bacon. "I followed the instructions."

Dean coughed and choked and spluttered all the way to the stove. There wasn't even a fire. And the breakfast didn't look half bad—if he was seeing it right through the haze of smoke. He couldn't help laughing. "You did good, Cas," he said. "We just gotta work on your frying technique."

Cas looked completely defeated. "I was trying to be useful," was all he said.

Dean frowned, and immediately, the levity of the situation left him. He opened all the doors, then dragged Cas outside where he could breathe and see straight. He waited for his eyes to stop stinging before he sighed. "Okay. What's wrong?"

"Nothing's wrong, Dean. I'm just trying to help out. There's not much more for me to do here," Cas said.

"Just bored like the rest of us?"

"Exactly."

"Don't give me that crap."

Cas looked surprised, like he had actually expected Dean to believe him.

"I thought you said you were gonna be straight with me, Cas," Dean said. "What's eating you?"

For a while, Cas just stared at him. He did that sometimes, where he would stare at Dean for so long it felt like he would never stop until he saw straight through into Dean's soul. And when he stared, he took a step closer. It used to bother Dean, but he was used to it at this point. Finally, Cas just shook his head. "I'm scared," he said, so quietly that Dean almost missed it.

"Scared of what? Crowley? Losing your powers?" Dean asked. Cas had his full attention now, and he reached out to grab his angel by the shoulder and turn him around so they faced each other. "C'mon, Cas."

Cas looked down at the ground instead of Dean. He was quiet for far too long.

Dean let go of Cas and walked away for a second to compose his thoughts. When he came back, Cas didn't look scared or upset anymore. The smoke had mostly made its way out of the kitchen, and the whole scene looked almost normal. So, Dean decided not to push it. When Cas was ready, he would tell Dean.

They walked back through the kitchen doors. Cas had done a pretty good job. There was toast, there were eggs, and the bacon wasn't burned too bad. Dean took a couple pieces and stuck them in his mouth with a _crunch_. "Not too shabby," he told Cas with the sideways grin he usually reserved for damsels in distress but also worked on depressed friends.

Cas gave him a small smile in return, then served himself up a plate. Garth and his friends were out tracking a wendigo in Wisconsin, so they had the place to themselves for the next few days. That was just as well; Garth might not have taken too well to Cas's attempt to burn down the place.

They ate breakfast in relative silence; Sam still had not come down to join them, not since he spent the last half hour trying to scrub the foreign taste out of his mouth. But lately he and Cas just seemed to fight when they tried to talk to each other, so maybe silence was the better option.

"Did you ever wonder why more angels don't just fall?" Cas asked suddenly.

Dean stared at him. "Sure, Cas. I ask myself that question every day."

"I'm being serious."

Dean stopped smiling and sat up a little straighter, even leaning in a little to prove to Cas that, yes, he was listening now.

"Even after Heaven fell into anarchy after we averted the apocalypse, angels weren't falling—even the ones who had been contemplating it."

"Yeah, but why would you _want _to fall?" Dean asked. He remembered asking Anna the same questions, and of course he still remembered her answers, but things were different lately. Angels could do what they wanted now; Heaven could not keep tabs on all of them. Why give up all that power for a life you could have as an angel on Earth?

Cas laughed. "Lots of reasons. Some selfish. Anna was attracted to your range of choices and emotions. Others wanted to be human so they could be our Father's favorites again." Cas paused after that last part; it had always been a sore spot—the divide between humanity and angels in God's eyes. "Me, I just like the bugs down here." He tried to smile, but he was lying with that last bit. Cas had never been very good at lying; he always tried to arrange his face like he was pretending to be someone else.

"Why are you even telling me this?" Dean asked.

"Angels are scared of falling, Dean," Cas said. "Because the first angel to fall . . . when he was a human, he made all the wrong choices. Because he could, and he didn't remember heaven very well. He earned himself an eternity in Hell, and Hell spit him back out as the most powerful demon Hell had seen in thousands of years."

"So one angel made mistakes."

"His name was Jonas when he was an angel, but when he was a human, his name was MacLeod."

Dean stopped. He just stopped.

Cas stared at him, waiting for him to finishh processing.

Dean shook his head. "Crowley?"

"Have you ever seen a demon with different-colored smoke before?" Cas asked. "We had never seen anything like it. He had no grace, so he didn't have the powers of an angel, but he was one once. He died a human, so he could still become a demon, but it was different enough that, well . . . ." Cas shook his head.

"Which explains why Crowley was able to stay topside when we closed the Gates."

Cas nodded.

"And you're scared of what else he can do even with the Gates closed?"

Cas looked surprised, then realized what Dean was really asking. His entire face softened and he shook his head. "No, that's not what worries me." He took a sip of coffee, obviously stalling for time. Dean could see his eyes moving fast, his gaze darting back and forth as he tried to come up with the right words for this conversation.

"Cas, I can't help if you don't talk to me."

Cas leaned forward. His eyes were wide and burning. "Dean, I've fallen. I'm basically human. The Gates of Heaven are closed to me, and I'm not really sure what I am anymore."

"So? Who cares if you're an angel or a Smurf so long as you're still, y'know, you?"

"That's not the point." Cas said. (He didn't ask what a Smurf was, so either Sam had done his job of educating Cas about the important things in life or he was too concerned with the current conversation to care.) "The point is, Dean . . . ." He sighed, shifted his weight, and started over. "Look at what I've done. You saw the mess I made of Earth, and you know what I've done to Heaven. Do you really think I haven't earned myself a stay in Hell?"

Dean's eyes widened, and he felt himself moving even before he made the conscious decision to slip around the table and crouch down next to Cas. "Don't you _ever_ think like that," he said. "I hear you talking like that again . . . ." He shook his head. "Cas, you've helped us save the world. Multiple times. And you don't think that counts for anything?"

"How can anything make up for what I did?" Cas demanded.

Dean blinked at his friend. "I really thought we were past this."

Cas looked up, locked eyes with him. He looked so defeated, haunted. "Dean, I thought you would understand." He licked his lips. "Did _you_ forget?"

Dean froze. No fair. No fair bringing his past into this.

"Did you ever get past Hell? Purgatory? The Apocalypse?" Cas demanded. His face was turning red. "And don't you lie to me. You still have nightmares. I've been there."

Dean felt his face turning a shade of red that matched Cas's. He remembered. The nights in Purgatory. The nights after Purgatory when Cas went on hunting trips with them. Of course he still had nightmares. It was Hell. How was he supposed to forget something like that? He had managed to hide it from Sam, but Cas never slept, so it was hard to hide it by going to sleep later and getting up earlier.

"And after all that, at least you know your place in Heaven has been assured. At least you've got that," Cas said. He shook his head. "I don't know what happens to angels when we die. I know what happens to fallen angels—they die like humans. But I haven't totally fallen. I'm not yet human. I don't know what happens to me after you and Sam are gone." He looked back up at Dean. His eyes were shining.

Dean took a long time to think about his answer before he said, "Cas, why are you even thinking about this? You're not gonna die anytime soon. We're not gonna let that happen."

"I know," Cas said slowly. "I trust you to keep your friends safe. But I'm talking about long-term. I can't stay here forever. When I die, I don't want to become what Crowley . . . ." He shook his head.

Dean reached for his angel's shoulder. "Cas, you hear me?"

"Yeah."

"You're not gonna die. We're gonna figure this out. And you're not going to Hell. You hear me?"

To Dean's surprise, Cas just smiled. "I know," he said. "I've got a plan."

"Then what are you sitting around moping for?"

Cas looked at him with shining eyes again, and that's when Dean understood. Cas wasn't just talking out his fears; he was trying to explain himself to Dean, trying to make Dean understand what he was about to do. Dean could see the fear rising behind Cas's eyes, but this time, it was the fear that Dean might reject him.

"If I do this," Cas said, "you won't see me again for months. And you can't come looking for me."

"I'm not promising you that," Dean said.

"Fine. You can look for me if it makes you feel better," Cas said, waving his hand. "But you won't find me. You won't be able to. I'll find you." Cas looked at Dean, long and hard. "And when I do . . . I'll be different."

"You'll still be Cas, though," Dean said.

Cas nodded.

"Then just so long as you come back in one piece."

Cas smiled. He took another long, hard look at Dean, then _poof_. Gone.

Dean actually regretted helping Cas learn how to do that. The guy was still awful at goodbyes.


	7. Chapter 7

A/N: I would just like to shout-out to my best friend Margaret for encouraging me to get this written. I probably wouldn't have even started if not for her.

Also, thanks to people who keep at me and give me constructive criticism as well as to people who point out specific things that I'm doing well so I can move forward.

Also, and this is more important, I've decided I'm dividing this into two parts. Part two starts in Chapter Ten. The story really has two sides: the lead-up and the consequences.

Disclaimer: I still don't have the rights to Supernatural or any other such related things.

...

"Listen, honey, you don't have to put on a brave face for me."

Cas looked up at the woman sitting across from him. He had never heard Dean talk about her much, but Sam mentioned her once or twice. He said that she made everyone feel safe, but also a little off-balance, like all your secrets were no longer yours, even your thoughts.

Cas found it refreshing.

"And yes, dear, I do think that what you're proposing is possible."

Cas blinked at her. "Missouri, I don't recall telling you—"

"I could feel you worrying from outside my house," Missouri waved her hand. "And you've got all the ingredients for a nice spell, but don't you think you should consider sitting down and talking with Dean about your plan?"

"He'd say no."

"Of course he would!" Missouri looked like she wanted to slap him; it was a good thing he was sitting on this end of the room. "After all that boy has done trying to take care of the people he loves, you want to go putting them in harm's way?"

"They would be safe. You said the spell would work." Cas had expected the fight, the argument. That was the main reason he wasn't talking to Dean. Dean said he should take care of himself now that the Gates of Hell were closed, and he was trying to do that. But if he stopped to think about what it would do to him . . . .

Missouri shook her head. "I did say that, didn't I?" She sighed. "Well, I'm not saying it's not possible. But honey, there are other ways."

"I like this way."

Missouri laughed. "He has taught you well, hasn't he? Stubborn to a fault."

Her insight was no longer refreshing. Cas felt uncomfortable all of a sudden.

Missouri went quiet for a while, letting Cas stew in his discomfort, before, finally, she sighed. "I could carry you."

"No."

"I could. We don't have to drag anyone else into this."

"No."

"And whyever not?"

Cas stared at her. "Don't you know?"

She stared back at him.

"Don't you know, Missouri? I thought you knew everything I thought."

Missouri shook her head. "You trust him that much?"

"With everything," Cas said without hesitation. Of course he did. He and Dean had been through too much together, seen each other in highs and lows. There was only one person in the world that he trusted to help him get to Heaven. There was only one way. He couldn't get there on his own anymore.

"He would still help you if I was the one—"

Cas shook his head. "It's not an option. That's not what I want. I don't want that kind of life."

"You think you can just wish yourself into an apple pie ending?" Missouri looked at him with a kind of smile, almost flirting.

"You sound just like Dean."

"That seems to be the only way to get through to you!" She leaned back heavily into the couch and sighed. "I have never met a more single-minded, stubborn—"

"He wouldn't stay with you," Cas said suddenly.

Missouri stared at him, but this was more of an encouragement, like she was willing him to continue. He hadn't even realized that she had wormed her way inside his head until she was getting him to spill his guts.

"Everything . . . everything depends on him," he said. He took a deep breath. "On him getting me through."

Missouri nodded.

"And he wouldn't stay with you."

"Not like you want him to," Missouri supplied for him.

Cas nodded.

Missouri leaned back and smiled at him. "You really believe he can get you through?"

Cas nodded again.

"You should tell him that."

"I will."

"You should tell him that," Missouri said again. "You should tell him what you think of him. He needs to hear it if you're going to ask something like this."

"He's better," Cas said. "I know you haven't seen him for years, but he's much better now. He doesn't think he's worthless anymore."

"I know," Missouri said. (Of course she did.)

They both fell silent again, but this was much more comfortable. He could feel her smiling even without looking at her, and that was how he knew she was grilling him, forcing him to think this through, because she cared about the Winchesters just as much as he did. She didn't want Dean to shoulder Cas's burden—neither did Cas, frankly, but this was the only sure-fire way, and Dean had told him to go ahead with it, right?

Finally, Cas stood. He had what he needed, and if he was going to go through with it, he had better start now, before he lost his nerve. "Twelve years."

She nodded. "I'll come to call then. I'll hold Dean to it."

"Swear it," Cas said. He didn't mean to sound fierce or demanding, but this was his entire life at stake. His whole future.

"Honey, I promise you. I'll swear up and down. I'll come calling in twelve years, if I'm even still alive, and I'll open you up inside, but have you ever considered that you might not want to know?"

"I don't want to forget," Cas said.

"Dean might want you to."

"Too bad."

Missouri laughed. "Good for you, standing up for yourself." There was a knock at her door, and she frowned. "Bless his heart. Is he still worried about that poltergeist? I told him it was long gone a year ago." She turned to face Cas. "I'm sorry, honey, but you'll just have to slip out the back. I've got a customer waiting, and I can tell you're anxious to talk to her."

"Thanks." He started to stand, but she grabbed him by the wrist.

"And don't you think about using those powers of yours to poof yourself over there. You'll need all the power you can muster when you do get there."

Cas nodded. Of course she was right. Sam had assured him that she would be. "Thank you. You've been a great help."

"Of course I have. Now skedaddle, Castiel. No point wasting time if you're really set on doing this." She whacked him upside the head as she left the room. But Cas knew. It was a sign of affection—the teasing, the hitting. Maybe it was a thing all psychics did. Pamela had certainly been one for the teasing.

Cas cleared the room as fast as he could; he didn't want to know about the man with the poltergeist problem. He just wanted to get across the country and get on with the next step of the rest of his life.

It was going to be a problem, he knew. There was no guarantee she would agree to help him. There was every possibility that she would hate him, that she would flat-out refuse. And she would have every right to. And then maybe he would take Missouri up on her offer. There weren't many people left in the world that would be willing to help him. He had very, very limited options.

It would be embarrassing, though, to have to show up on Missouri's doorstep again.

But maybe she would say yes. Maybe she would agree to help him. He could protect her as well as he could, and Dean would do the rest. She was stronger than he thought she was; she could handle it if she decided to take it on.

Dean might not handle it well. In fact, he was certain of it. That was why he wasn't going to tell him. He had it all written out. Less face-to-face. Less chance of him turning Cas down.

Once he was out the back door, he could stretch his wings, really let them unfold. And when he took off, he made sure to be far enough away from the house that the draft didn't knock anything over. He liked Missouri; he didn't want to hurt anything.

It was only a few minutes later that he landed in front of her house.

"This was a good idea a few seconds ago," he said to himself.

She had moved. The house was old. The fence was falling apart. And she was falling apart. That was always a possibility after such an immense psychological event as he had inflicted on her. Her mind was trying to get back what it used to have. The human soul had a distinct tenacity, a desire to be whole. That was something even his powers couldn't have changed.

There was a teenager out in her yard. Fourteen, almost fifteen. He smelled like beer. He was fuming about something, pacing the yard. And then she came out.

She poked her head out the door carefully at first. When her son didn't immediately start shouting at her, she came out all the way. She didn't look much older than the last time he saw her, even though it had been about four years. But she did look more tired, like she was in danger of collapse. It wasn't easy raising a teenager on her own, especially not one like Ben.

Cas knew now would not be a good time to interrupt, so he waited by the side of the fence. Waited to see.

She sat down next to Ben and put her hand over his. "Just help me to understand. What could possibly possess you to go out with Jack and his crew?"

Ben just sat there, his jaw clenched.

"You _know _what kind of people they are. Do you want to end up in jail? Is that it?"

"Mom!"

Lisa gripped Ben's hands tighter. "I don't understand. Just tell me what you need."

"I need you to stay out of my life!" Ben shouted. He shoved her hands away and pushed his hands into his pockets. Lisa just stared up at him, watching with her mouth slightly open as her son stormed away, fuming.

He reached the edge of the driveway, and Cas reached out to grab him by the wrist. Ben turned, pocketknife in hand, but then Cas reached up to touch his forehead. He went sort of limp, then his eyes refocused, and he looked at Cas with his head tilted to one side.

He remembered.

"Ben—"

But Cas didn't get to say the speech he had prepared. Ben took one look at him and ran off in the other direction. He was still gripping his knife, too; Dean would probably kill him for that.

Cas sighed. He hadn't meant to restore Ben's memory first. It was Lisa he was more worried about, and now he was running low on power. He had been trying to conserve it for days, pretending that he couldn't feel his powers returning when Dean pushed him for more miracles. He needed it for this moment.

But he had to heal Ben, had to remind him who he used to be.

It couldn't have been easy for them. Dean had moved them around, had been such a big part of their lives, and surely there had been questions. People who knew about their family, about the Impala that used to be parked at their old places. Dean had asked for a memory wipe, but with it came other problems. Ben lost a father, and even if he didn't remember that, he could still feel it. And Lisa . . . .

Cas had always known there would be problems. And he tried to tell Dean that. But Dean hadn't listened, and he hadn't looked in on them again. And this was what had happened.

Squaring his shoulders, Cas marched himself up to the front door. Lisa was still sitting on the steps, still staring after Ben.

"He'll be alright," Cas said. He hadn't meant to startle her when he sat down, but he had assumed she saw him cross the lawn. Apparently not.

"It's hard," she said. "Raising teenagers." She shook her head. "I'm sorry. You don't need any of this. I'm Lisa."

"Castiel." He took the proffered hand.


	8. Chapter 8

Disclaimer: I still don't own anything related to Supernatural.

...

Dean stared at his cell phone for a long time.

It couldn't be her. This couldn't be happening. Cas had promised he wiped everything, so she couldn't be calling him. How did she even have his number? He had changed it so many times, especially since Purgatory.

His hands shook.

Sam leaned over. "Dean?" he asked softly. A few seconds ago, he had been laughing at Dean as the freezing cold water ran down his neck when he walked through the doorway. Now, he was serious, ready to go at a moment's notice. The crutches were gone, too, so he really was ready to jump in.

The phone kept ringing.

"Dean, who is it?" Sam asked.

Slowly, carefully, like he was disarming a bomb, he raised the phone to his ear. "Lisa?"

"Dean?"

His heart stopped. He could actually feel himself sweating through a panic attack. How long had it been? Four years? What could possibly possess her to call now?

Sam was watching him carefully. He knew what Lisa meant to Dean, what hearing from her could do to him. It was the kind of look you might give an alcoholic driving past a liquor store.

"Lisa?" He couldn't think of anything else to say to her. He still couldn't believe this was happening. Why was she calling? _How _was she calling?

"Dean, is Ben there?"

Dean shuddered. "Ben's not with you?"

"He's not with you?"

Dean already had his jacket on. He had the keys in his pocket. "When was the last time you heard from him?"

"Yesterday afternoon. We had a . . . we had a visitor, and then he just took off."

"A visitor? Who?"

Sam climbed into the front seat of the Impala alongside him. He didn't say a word, but he kept watching his brother carefully, like he might explode.

Lisa sighed. "Someone from the past, Dean. The past you asked us to forget so you could wash your hands of us."

He hated the tone of her voice, the accusation. He hadn't _asked_ her to forget anything. He had been trying to protect her. That was all he had ever done for her and Ben, all he had ever done for anyone. And if they couldn't see that he was right, well, he'd just steer them into safety anyway. "Don't you turn this back on me," he said. He hadn't meant to growl, but he did. "I did everything I could to keep you and Ben out of the life."

"By erasing yourself from our lives?" Lisa shot back. But then she sighed again. "Look, this isn't what I called to talk about. My son is missing, and you're going to help me find him."

"Yes ma'am."

"Don't do that."

"What?"

"Don't impersonalize this. This isn't just another one of your hunts. This is Ben."

"He's probably just run off to be on his own. If your memories are coming back . . . ." He shook his head. Maybe closing the Gates of Heaven had diminished the power of Cas's miracles, or maybe something else had happened. But he was going to find whatever was responsible and slice it open.

"He might be looking for you," Lisa said.

"He's no hunter, and we're keeping ourselves hidden. He shouldn't be able to find us."

"And you think that's going to make me feel better?" He could practically see the look on her face. Even after all this time. She was panicking now. Her eyes would be wide, her shoulders shaking. But she'd still be pretending that she wasn't worried. She would get that look, the "I can handle this" look that fooled most people, but not him.

"Lisa," he said, more quietly this time. "Lisa, listen to me. I'm going to get him back. I'll bring him home, okay? Don't you worry."

"Okay."

"Okay?"

"Bring him home."

"Okay." He hung up the phone and stared at it for a long time. Lisa. He had never thought, not in a million years, that she'd be calling him again. He had nightmares about this, about something happening to them, about what would happen if they ever remembered. But this was far worse than a nightmare. Cas was gone, Ben was missing—what else could go wrong?

"We should bring Benny," Dean said.

It was a tribute to how worried Sam was that he didn't argue. He just said, "You think so?"

"He can track a human better than we can," Dean said. And he would know. He remembered the sensation, the way each human tasted and smelled different. And he'd only been a vampire for a short time. Benny was fantastic at it.

"Okay." Sam didn't argue. He knew better than that—Ben was involved, after all. He just got out of the car so fast and quiet that Dean had to look twice to see if he had really left.

Dean reached into the glove compartment and fished out his cell phone. There weren't many people left he could call, but he had to try this one. He dialed.

"You have reached the voice mail of 'I don't understand. Why do you want me to say my name?'" Then there was a beep.

"Cas," he said. He frowned and shook his head. "Cas, I really need you right now. I know you told me you'd be out of touch, but I could really use a hand here." He paused, sighed. "It's Ben. It's Lisa and Ben, and he's missing, and I swear, if you don't help me . . . ." He closed the phone.

It only took a couple seconds for Cas to call him back. "Dean?"

"Cas." He tried not to sound so relieved. "I thought you said—"

"This is important to you. That's what friends do, right?"

Dean just blinked at his phone, not sure how he was supposed to react. This didn't usually happen. He was used to leaving voice messages. He was used to calling someone who would never pick up. But actually getting a response?

"I think he's looking for you."

"Why would he be doing that?" Dean asked.

"Because he remembers," Cas said. He sounded tired, upset even. "Dean, I . . . I think I made a mistake."

Dean frowned. "What are you talking about?"

"I thought I could . . . when I showed up . . . ."

Realization hit Dean at about the same time Cas lost his words. "Cas, what did you do?"

"It was an accide—"

Dean hung up. He pressed the phone to his head, gripping it so tight that he might actually break it. Cas, what were you thinking? He gritted his teeth and took a deep breath. Okay, he could get mad at Cas later. Right now, Ben needed his help.

The passenger door opened, and Dean looked up to see Sam squeezing his giant frame inside. Benny slid into the backseat, wincing at the sun behind the clouds. He didn't buckle in but rather crawled into the space between the seats, where at least the light didn't reach him.

"Thanks, Benny. I owe you."

"Let's just find the kid," Benny said from his position on the car floor.

Sam stared at his brother. "Any leads?" he asked quietly.

"Cas thinks Ben's trying to track me down. Should help if we're both looking for each other," Dean said. He gripped the steering wheel tighter.

"Okay, um." Sam shook his head. "If you were trying to find a hunter, where would you look?"

"Somewhere there's a hunt," Benny said from the backseat.

Great. Just great. Dean started the car and slammed the palm of his hand into the steering wheel. "I'm gonna kill him."

"The kid?" Benny perked up, looking concerned

"Cas."

Both Benny and Sam fell silent, and that was just fine with Dean. He reached over and turned on the music. "Highway to Hell."

They drove in silence for a while as Sam surfed the internet on his phone for anything in Ben's area that might attract his attention. Hours passed. Finally, Sam looked up at his brother. "There's a possible werewolf in Alma, Texas."

"And Ben could be there?"

"It's the closest thing I could find."

Dean nodded. He pushed the Impala a little faster; he was definitely not going to be late to this one. Ben had no business walking into the middle of something like that, and if he got hurt because he was looking for Dean . . . .

The sun had already set by the time they drove into Alma, which only made the whole thing more dangerous for Ben, if a little more convenient for Benny. He pulled into the motel but did not park, just let Sam out to book a room—two rooms. (One for them and one for Benny; Sam didn't want the vampire anywhere near him when he slept.)

"Alright. Tell me about this werewolf."

Benny had Sam's phone and was reading off the information, directing Dean. "There's a diner in town, probably the only place worth a peek." He made a face. "Only three hundred people around this place. Not a good hunting ground."

"Not helping. Where's the diner?"

"Just keep driving. It's down the main road. Draws business that way."

He needn't have asked. They were at the diner in just ten minutes; the town wasn't really big enough to get lost in. And sure enough, there it was.

Dean parked and jumped out of the Impala, with Benny close behind. "You getting anything?"

"You said the kid was fourteen now?"

"He'll be fifteen next week."

Benny tilted his head to one side, but he didn't press Dean for details. It was obvious Dean cared about the kid; he still remembered his birthday and little details like that. He had tried to cut himself out of their lives completely, but he had never asked to forget.

Benny made his way around the diner. "There's two kids in here, both about that age. I've never met him before, though, so I can't tell for sure."

Dean was already through the door; Benny didn't follow him.

The bell rang above his head, and the girl behind the counter looked up at him with a cheery smile that didn't fit the time of night. "Hiya!" she beamed at him. "What can I do you for?"

"I'm looking for my . . . ." He stopped; Ben was _not _his kid. "I'm looking for someone," he corrected himself.

The girl behind the counter nodded and went back to counting the money in the register; it was probably close to closing time. But someone else had his attention now. A hair-gelled head stuck up out of a booth almost as soon as Dean started speaking.

_Bam_.

The kid—who was almost six feet tall now—hit him with a tackle that he had actually seen coming but that he didn't want to stop. He hit him so hard that they both tripped back out the door and into the parking lot, and Dean ended up flat on his back with Ben kneeling down on top of him, gripping him tight by the lapels and shoving his face up close. (Benny was waving people away; this was probably the most excitement people in this town had seen.)

"Hey, Ben," he said weakly.

"Dean," Ben said back. He looked different—very different. Leather jacket, pocketknife . . . was that alcohol?

"What happened to you?" he asked. He could feel his throat constricting as he looked Ben over. This wasn't what was supposed to happen. Ben and Lisa were supposed to get back to living their normal lives.

"What do you think happened?" Ben snarled. "You left us alone. Mom never really recovered. She couldn't hold a steady boyfriend. And me . . . ." He shook his head. "Well, I probably didn't help much."

"She was moving on last I saw her."

"Because you helped," Ben said. His eyes were watering now. "You weren't there, Dean. You weren't around after the changelings. Mom was second-guessing everything; she had nightmares for a month. And then you kept coming back, and Mom . . . she felt safe with you."

"Yeah. Until I nearly got you both killed," Dean pointed out. "She clued in before I did; I'm dangerous to have around."

"Isn't that for us to decide?" Ben asked. "You don't get to make decisions _for _us. That's not your job."

"It is if you insist on putting yourselves in danger," Dean shot right back.

"Shut up, Dean," Ben said. This time, his eyes weren't just watering. As Dean watched, Ben started to cry, and he wriggled out from under the kid.

"Hey," he whispered. He reached under Ben's shoulders and lifted him to his feet, then wrapped him up in a hug. It felt good, this. Holding Ben, having him close. He hadn't realized how much he missed it until he had it again.

The crowd had dispersed by the time Ben finished crying. But Benny was still hanging back even when Dean bundled Ben into the front seat of his car. Dean turned around. "Benny? You coming?"

Ben looked up but realized Dean was not talking to him. (Oh yeah, that could get confusing.)

Benny kept hanging back. He looked—did he look scared? He looked scared. "Dean," he said quietly. It was a plea. Don't make him get in the car. Don't let him get in the car. He'd seen that look before.

"Benny," he said. He tried the sideways smile. "What, you chickening out on me all of a sudden? Think you'd like to settle in the middle nowhere?"

"Dean." Benny panted, looking with wide eyes into the front seat of the car. "Dean, that's not one of the kids I smelled in the diner. He doesn't smell human."


	9. Chapter 9

A/N: Two things. One, I'm not really sure why I wrote this from Sam's perspective. Two, this is the last chapter of the first part. The second part . . . . Well, no spoilers but it's definitely a tonal shift. In a good way, I think?

Disclaimer: I still don't own anything related to Supernatural.

...

It was frightening seeing his brother like this, so close to the verge of unraveling. Dean was hardly holding it together, and Sam could see that. He wasn't handling this very well.

They had paid for a night in the motel, but they didn't end up staying there. Instead, as soon as Dean got back, he picked Sam up, practically shoved him into the backseat, and just kept driving.

Benny had filled him in, in hushed tones and intimations. Ben was still sitting in the front seat, staring at Dean with something like admiration and also fear, even hatred. It was a look Sam knew very well; he'd seen it in the mirror. But Ben didn't look any different, just older. As much as Sam hated to admit it, it had been a good idea to bring Benny; they would never have been able to tell this wasn't Ben—maybe even Ben didn't realize something was inside him.

Dean had a death grip on the steering wheel; his knuckles were white, and his jaw was clenched. Then, slowly, he reached into the pocket of his jacket. This would be the third time.

Sam watched his brother dial, waited with baited breath. The phone rang for a long time, which meant Cas wasn't going to answer. He heard Dean swear under his breath, but this time he didn't just hang up. This time, he left a message. "Look, Cas. Don't be a baby. I shouldn't have hung up on you. I need you."

Sam was surprised at the frankness of his brother's words. He had never been this open with Sam; he had never been able to just say what he needed. Sam was almost jealous of Cas; he had always been able to get through to Dean in ways that Sam never could.

"Dean, what's going on?" Ben asked. "Look, I shouldn't have run away and scared Mom, but—"

"Ben," Dean said. It was a quiet demand. Not now.

Sam tried to smile at Ben from the backseat. He had seen Dean like this before, and he knew the only thing for it was to just let him stew until he was done being upset. Dean needed to process the situation, get a plan started in his head. He couldn't just jump into action like he usually did, not when someone he cared about was at stake.

Benny hadn't said much, except to explain the situation to Sam. But then again, Sam could hardly blame him. Whatever was in Ben must have been incredibly dangerous; Sam had never seen Benny this shaken before. Benny didn't even know what it was living inside Ben; that was what scared him the most. He said it was the most powerful thing he had ever come into contact with, and he used to fight Leviathons in Purgatory.

Another ten minutes passed. Dean wasn't even playing music. Everything was quiet, and Sam had been staring out the window until he heard the dial tone again.

This time, though, when Dean dialed Cas's number, there was an answer. Sam didn't hear who picked up the phone, but he could see the frownlines in Dean's forehead. "Lisa?" he whispered into the phone. "What are you doing with Cas's phone?"

Sam watched as Ben leaned forward, watching Dean's reactions to speaking with his mother. Sam remembered how eager Ben had been, how hard he had tried to keep that family together, and it was no surprise that he was playing matchmaker again, even subconsciously.

"What do you mean he left it with you?"

That definitely wasn't a good sign. If Cas had ditched their best method of communication, he was up to something that he didn't want them involved in. And he couldn't have picked a worse time. If there was ever a time they needed Cas's "detective skills," his unique knowledge of all monsters under the sun, it was now.

Dean sighed, then slammed his hand into the steering wheel. "Well, where is he?"

Ben stared at Dean for a long time, his eyes wide. Then, he turned around to look at Sam, and his face asked the question he dared not voice: What was happening?

Sam just shook his head. He didn't have any answers, not yet.

"I'm coming over there," Dean said. He paused as Lisa said something, then said again, more determined this time, "No, Lisa, I mean it. There's something . . . ." He glanced over at Ben. "There's something wrong with Ben."

That was obviously the first Ben had heard of his situation. He sat up straighter, staring at Dean, but when Dean refused to look at him, he turned around to look at Sam. His eyes were wide, scared, childish. He might have been older than the last time they saw him, but that did not make him any less exposed.

Dean was quiet, listening to Lisa on the other end. He had turned the volume down on his phone so that no one else could hear what she was saying, but his frown just kept getting deeper and deeper. Finally, he said, "And you're sure?" He paused a bit longer, then shook his head. "Okay. Thanks, Lisa. I'll be there soon." With that, he hung up the phone.

"Dean?" Ben sounded terrified.

Dean actually looked over at him this time. His expression softened the way it used to, the way he always looked when he looked at kids. It was an expression Sam missed on his brother's face; he hadn't seen it since he was twenty-four, at least not directed towards him. He reached over and squeezed Ben's shoulder. "We're gonna figure this out, Ben. Your mom's waiting for you when you get home."

"Are you sure that's a good idea?"

Sam had to admire the kid. He knew the risks of having something inside him, especially knowing what he did about what Dean did for a living. And he was just like Dean, really (Sam had never believed Lisa when she said Dean wasn't Ben's father). He didn't want to put the ones he loved in danger if he could help it.

Dean nodded. "Your mom thinks she knows what's happening here. She's been talking to Cas."

"The angel?"

Dean nodded again.

Sam shook his head. "What's he up to?" he asked out loud. Dean glanced up at him in the rearview mirror, and he continued. "I mean, think about it, Dean. He gives you this long speech about why he's got to leave, and then he goes to Lisa and Ben? It doesn't sound like he was just going on a farewell tour."

"Is something wrong with Castiel?" Ben asked. He didn't understand much about who Cas was and what had been happening since he last saw Dean, but he did know how much Cas meant to Dean, and that was what made him worried more than anything else.

"It's a long story," Dean said. "I'll tell you later."

"Yeah right," Ben muttered. But he didn't have time to give a more articulate argument. The Impala pulled into the driveway of the old house.

Sam tried not to stare too long. This house was more run-down than the last one Lisa had lived in, and he could guess why. Dean had moved them around a lot, and then she had disappeared from her job when Crowley kidnaped her. Then she was missing a huge chunk of the past few years in her memory, and Sam knew what it was like to be missing a piece of yourself. It wasn't something you could just walk away from.

Dean got out of the car, and Ben followed him, but Benny stayed put in the backseat. When Sam shot him a questioning look, he just shook his head. He was irrationally afraid of whatever was inside of Ben, and he was just fine staying in the Impala. Sam rolled his eyes and followed Ben and Dean inside the house.

Ben went inside first, then Dean followed. He was doing okay until Lisa walked into the living room, and then, he just stopped.

Sam looked away, trying to be polite, but he had seen the look on his brother's face. He saw the way he looked at Lisa, the longing, the adoration behind his eyes. Even when Ben was in danger, his brother couldn't help what Lisa did to him.

Sam took a seat on the nearest couch, and Lisa sat down across from him. Ben sat in between the two brothers, and Sam took it upon himself to keep an eye on the kid. Dean was a bit distracted.

"Lisa," Dean said at last. It was the only word he had managed to eek out since he saw her again.

"Dean," she nodded back.

Okay, Sam felt awkward.

"Can I see it?" Dean asked.

Ben and Sam both turned to Dean. What was he talking about?

Lisa nodded; she apparently understood exactly what was happening. She reached into her purse and wordlessly pulled out a huge ream of paper. Sam recognized it almost immediately: it had Cas's calligraphic handwriting all over it.

Dean set the book in his lap and stared at it long and hard. Both Ben and Sam leaned over to read the beautiful handwriting: "Dean's Instruction Manual."

Ben looked down at the book, then back up at Lisa. "Mom?" he asked quietly. "What's going on?"

Lisa looked first to Dean, then, when Dean kept staring at the book and did not answer, she sighed. "Ben, honey, there's nothing wrong with you. Nothing's inside you."

But then there was a _crash_, and Benny came bursting in through the front door, all fangs with his knife raised. Lisa cried out, reaching for the nearest thing to throw at it, and Ben pulled out his pocketknife, but Dean had snapped out of it by now and jumped in front of them. "Everybody stop!" he shouted, holding up his hands both to stop Benny from advancing and to stop Lisa and Ben from trying to kill Benny. (Sam wouldn't have been so sad if that happened, but it shouldn't have to be a civilian who finished off this guy.)

"Dean," Benny said, his eyes wide and his chest heaving, "there's two of them in here." He still looked terrified, but he had apparently decided that it was better to face that and rush in to die with his friend than to stay in the Impala any longer.

"Yes, that would be me," Lisa said with a smile.

"What?" Sam shook his head. This didn't make any sense.

Dean motioned to the book Cas left, to the first page, where he had left it open. "Cas left us a parting gift, Benny," he said. "A powerful spell to keep Lisa and Ben safe once they started to remember." He shook his head, grinning despite everything. "Idiot. He must have drained every last bit of power he had left just putting it on these two."

"Dean, what's going on?" Ben asked, and it was the first time he sounded like the Ben that Sam used to know.

Dean smiled and took Ben under his arm. He ruffled his hair affectionately, but almost mechanically. His gaze kept darting back to the book that he hadn't nearly finished reading. "Cas wanted to keep you safe," he said, "but I've got a price on my head. He didn't want any monsters coming after you—not like last time."

Lisa folded her arms and frowned. Sam imagined that, when she remembered Cas at last, it had not been a very pleasant reunion, considering everything Cas had done to their family.

"So he went to Missouri—"

"Missouri?" Sam repeated. He shook his head. How did Cas even know about Missouri? He must have put a lot of thought into this plan of his.

Dean just continued as if he had not heard Sam, "—and found a spell that would change your essence without changing your soul. Get close enough, and monsters can tell you're human, but he's poured such a powerful essence into you that any monster within a hundred yards will turn tail and run the other way rather than face you."

"Why didn't we think of doing that earlier?" Sam asked with a weak smile.

"Can't hide this sweet face behind a spell," Dean grinned. "The monsters know us by sight, Sammy. Cas just wanted to make sure that the monsters didn't get close enough to Lisa and Ben to get to know them that personally."

"Did he say why?" Benny asked. He was grimacing, and it was obvious that whatever spell Cas put on Lisa and Ben still scared him, but at least now that he knew what it was, he could stand his ground.

That was when Lisa stepped forward. "I think I can answer that," she said softly. She looked at Dean, but Sam had a feeling Dean already knew exactly what she was going to say; he had that look on his face.

"Lisa," he said softly.

Lisa just kept smiling at him. Then, with a smile so sad that it was hardly a smile anymore, she turned to Benny. "I'm pregnant," she said at last.


	10. Part Two: Chapter 10

__A/N: Wow, thank you everyone for the enthusiastic responses and for the workable criticisms! I hope I can live up to the hype...

Anyway, this is the first chapter of Part 2, and I really hope you'll stick with me on this one. This part is the thing that started the whole story, and I've got it planned all the way through to the end, so... Go team reviewers? Keep me honest?

Disclaimer: I still don't own anything related to Supernatural.

_..._

_Dean,_

_If you're reading this, my plan actually worked. You won't be seeing me for another nine months, and I'm sure Lisa has already explained the particulars to you. I can only hope you don't hate me._

_I know I should have talked to you about this, but I was terrified you would say no. And, Dean, you're always telling me I should look out for myself and make my own choices. So this is me looking out for myself._

_Not many people get the chance to start over again, but I just might get to. I'm still an angel, and I can still Fall—the big Fall, not like the falling I've been doing since the day I met you. I can become a human, but that means starting over from the very beginning._

_If I did this, I have only one shot, one lifetime, to get it right. And I'll need someone there to teach me. That's where you come in._

_I know this is a lot to ask of you, and I wouldn't ask you if I didn't think you could do it. But Dean, I'm not going to remember anything. I'll need you to tell me stories of Castiel the angel. Don't just tell me the good parts, either. Tell me all the mistakes I made—once you think I'm old enough to handle it, of course—and tell me the truth about what's out there._

_That's another thing. Dean, I meant it when I said I wanted to be a hunter. It's the only thing I can think to do to help people, to atone for what I did. And don't tell me you don't want to put me through that. Don't say you're not putting me through that life. I can just picture your face. You'll get upset and tell me that you're not going to ruin this brand new life of mine. Thing is, Dean, I'm not sure if just living a good life is going to be enough to save me from Hell. I need something more. I need to be a hero—I need to be like you._

_So I'm sorry for getting Lisa and Ben involved in this, but I had to be sure you would stick around once I stopped being an angel. It had to be you. You have to be the one to get me through this life. You're the only one I trust to do it right._

_I hope I can help, though. I hear parents say that they wish they had an instruction manual for raising children, so I left you my best approximation of one here. It'll be different raising a fallen angel. I've given you as many warnings as I could, but I'm sure you'll be able to figure most of it out on your own._

_I'll see you in a few months. And, if we do this right, I'll also see you in Heaven when this is all over. _

_~Castiel _

…..

Dean paced outside the room. Ben was sitting out there with him, and Sam was on the way; he had been driving all night. Sam was supposed to be there, but early labor . . . .

He wasn't ready for this. He _so _was not ready for this.

He hadn't ever asked for a family; he had known he could never have one. He hadn't been there when Ben was born; he had just sort of jumped into semi-fatherhood without getting through the hard parts. He'd changed a diaper and put a baby to bed before, but that had been, what, one day?

"Dean, would you relax?" Ben said, but he was grinning ear to ear.

It hadn't been easy these last nine months. He'd fought hard to keep Ben and Lisa out. He tried every plan he could come up with. He thought maybe he'd just check in. It would be like it was before, when he called if he was close, but he promised himself he would never come if he was down, if he was dangerous, and especially not if he was drunk.

But the more pregnant she got, the harder it was to leave, especially the closer the due date approached. There was a little baby angel in there, and he couldn't just leave Cas. So he established a home base. He moved back in, stayed in Texas and drove from Lisa's place to wherever he was needed on a job. And he tried to ignore the fact that Ben was researching on his own, that Ben could salt the doors and windows, that Ben knew (at least in theory) how to kill anything that came their way.

Thing was, he wasn't as needed anymore. There were monsters, sure, but no demons. No plots to take over the world. And there was still a price on his head, and that sure kept him on his toes, but the monsters had learned not to get close to his family. The ones that tried were scattered in pieces across the entire state of Texas.

Benny had moved in, too, just to help out (Ben had taken to calling him "Uncle Benny," and Benny just ate it up. He was already planning the kid's Christmas presents). Benny liked the area, and he'd been looking for a place to settle in. He figured if he was going to be branded as a friend of the Winchesters for the rest of his life, he might as well embrace it. They made a good team; Benny looked out for the family for the nights—full-time when Dean was on a hunting trip—and Dean kept a steady watch during the day. Nothing was going to happen to Lisa or Ben. He was _not _going to make the same mistake twice.

And Cas had helped. The instruction manual was more than just a guide to raising an angel baby; it was like Cas's hunting journal. In the "Pregnancy" section, he had listed all the things that might go wrong with not only the physical pregnancy but the supernatural dangers Crowley might send their way. There were spells, summonings, chants, curses, talismans, everything Cas could think of.

The door opened, and a nurse poked her head out. She found Dean and crossed the waiting room. "Are you Dean Winchester?"

He nodded. It was weird; he had never been this scared before.

"You can go in now."

It was ridiculous how nervous he was. He slipped inside, and there she was, lying there so covered in sweat that she just glowed. She looked perfect, happy. She was smiling down at a little bundle in her arms.

He came around the side of the bed to look at him. Little baby Cas. Dean couldn't help beaming at him. He even had a little tuft of black hair on the top of his head. (Cas admitted to him that he had saved just an ounce of energy for one last miracle—a transfusion of Jimmy Novak DNA; he'd gotten used to looking that way.)

"He's amazing," he said. He reached down and squeezed Lisa's shoulder. "You did good, Lis."

She looked tired when she glanced up at him and put her hand over his. "Next time a friend of yours asks me a favor, remind me to say no."

Ben poked his head in through the door next. He grinned when he saw Dean and Lisa holding hands, but his smile got even bigger when he saw baby Cas. "Hey, that's him?" he asked, leaning down. "Can I hold him?" He looked up at the nurses for confirmation. They nodded.

"Watch his head," Dean said. (He couldn't believe he had actually said that out loud.)

But he shouldn't have worried. Ben was great with Cas. He cradled Cas into the nook of his arm, looking down at him with a face Dean had seen before. It was the face of a proud big brother. "Just you wait, Cas," he said. (Cas just stared up at him with wide eyes, almost unblinking, like he was just trying to take everything in at once.) "Just you wait until I get to take you on your first hunting trip. Or when I teach you to drive the Impala."

"Hey, wait a sec—"

"Right, cuz Cas is the only one who gets to be a hunter." Ben rolled his eyes. They had this argument before, and Dean lost. It was hard to keep telling Ben that he couldn't be a hunter when Cas had asked him to raise him in the life, and Ben was irreversibly part of that life now, too. "Give me some credit, Dean. I'll be a good big brother. I've got a good example." He looked back down at Cas and bounced him around. "You'll be my Sammy. Sound fun?"

Cas just stared at him with big, wide, blue eyes. Freakin' adorable.

"Do you want to hold him?" Ben asked.

Dean faltered. Of course he did. Of course he wanted to hold him. He was going to be taking care of this kid for the rest of his life.

But this was _Cas_. This was the angel who got him through everything these past few years, who saved his life and taught him more about being human than even he had realized. And now he was someone different, and holding Cas in his arms, changing his diapers—that would be like admitting that the old Cas was gone.

But he couldn't stop it as Ben handed him over, and Dean took the little bundle in his arms. "Hey," he said quietly, and he was surprised when his voice stopped in his throat. "Hey there, kiddo. Welcome back to the world."

Baby Cas looked up at him with those same big eyes, but this time, something lit up behind those eyes. He made some gurgly noises—Dean could only hope they were happy gurgly noises—and closed his eyes, turning his face towards Dean to snuggle in closer. Even as a baby, Cas felt safe with Dean.

Dean almost cried—he really did. Yep, this was the same old Cas. Still curious, still trusting. "Hey, Cas. You ready for this?"

Cas was falling asleep now, so he probably didn't care what Dean said.

"He likes you," Ben observed.

"Of course he does!" Dean tried not to sound so offended; he knew Ben meant well. But this was Cas; how could he _not _like Dean?

Cas was asleep by the time Dean handed him back to Lisa, and the nurses ushered them out of the room, insisting that both mother and baby needed their rest. But when they emerged, Ben and Dean were grinning so broadly that Sam—who had by now reached the waiting room—actually had to stop and laugh at them both.

"How's he holding up?" Sam asked, but he was talking to Ben. Ever since Cas shoved them into being a family, Sam had become the uncle Dean never knew he wanted to be. He and Ben were already masters at playing pranks on Dean, and they were officially his least favorite team.

"You should have seen him," Ben laughed. "You'd have thought he was the one going into labor, the way he was driving the Impala."

"I bet he started humming Metallica?"

Ben laughed again. "Yeah, he said it keeps him calm."

"Ridiculous, isn't he?"

Dean rolled his eyes. "Okay, you two. Cut it out."

Sam looked up at his big brother and grinned. "Hey, Dean," he said.

"Heya Sammy. Glad you could make it." He was at his brother's side in two strides, wrapping his arms around Sam's overlarge frame. Since Lisa's announcement, they had seen less and less of each other as Sam went searching for a way to get rid of Crowley—and, by extension, Crowley's contract on the Winchesters—and he had been hunting on his own in the meantime.

"You look awful," Sam said.

"I could say the same to you," Dean shot back. "Did you just crawl up out of the sewers?"

"I did try to shower before I came here." Sam looked embarrassed, so Dean didn't press him for more details.

"Hey, Sam," Ben said, tugging at Sam's sleeve. "What were you hunting this time?"

Sam glanced over at his brother for confirmation. Ben loved to hear hunting stories, and he was always begging Sam to take him along for the ride one of these days. (Dean wouldn't hear of it. If anyone was taking Ben, it would be Dean, and it would be an easy hunt. Ben was still going to go to at least apply to colleges, too, but Ben had made Dean swear that, when he turned eighteen, he would let Ben choose what he wanted to do with the rest of his life.)

Dean sighed one of his "I suppose you can if you have to" sighs, and Sam grinned, taking Ben under one massive arm and leading him aside to tell him about the ghouls in Massachusetts.


	11. Chapter 11

__A/N: This is the first chapter I had planned in my head when I started this story. I promise I will get you back to the drama and darkness you're used to. But if I was gonna write this story, this chapter was gonna have to happen. It just had to, okay?

Disclaimer: I still don't own anything related to Supernatural.

...

_Dean,_

_I'm sorry in advance for the toddler years. Every angel I know who ever fell had a hard time because they were just starting to become aware of themselves and their identity. I'm sorry in advance if I shout at you and scream that you're not my real father. _

_Of course, that was Anna's problem, and maybe I won't do that to you. I'm just warning you._

_Be patient with me, Dean. An angel's life is a long one, and our human minds can't shield it entirely. I'm going to want to know more about Heaven and God than kids you're used to dealing with. I'm going to ask questions about the supernatural side of the world. You can lie to me about it if you want to, but I don't know how effective that will be. Maybe telling me the truth will help with the transition._

_You also might want to know something about Lisa. She'll have borne an angel, and even a fallen angel can have a healing effect on whomever they live inside. She will be . . . incredibly fertile for the next few years after I'm born. _

_I know you said you didn't want kids, but you'll have me now, so this could be your chance to have some of your own if that's what you and Lisa decide. I'll try my very hardest not to be jealous._

_~Castiel_

…..

Cas had the best daddy in the whole wide world.

Cas's daddy let Cas call him Dean, and the neighbors didn't get to call their parents by their first names, so that made him pretty cool.

Cas's daddy let him lick the bowl when Mommy made dessert. He got to sit up on the counter with a spatula, and Dean would lick the mixers even though Mommy told him not to.

Cas's daddy let him stay up late and crawl in the bed with him and Mommy when he thought there was a monster in the closet. And Cas's daddy killed the monsters inside closets, so Cas always knew he was safe from them if Dean was around.

But the best thing was when Cas's daddy told him bedtime stories about Castiel the angel. That was where Cas got his name, and Cas liked to hear all the stories about the avenging angel who saved Dean from monsters and fought bad guys.

"Tell me another one, Dean. Please?" he asked. He wasn't really tired yet, no matter how many times Dean said he was, and the Castiel stories were his favorites.

Dean shook his head, but he was smiling, so that usually meant Cas was going to get his way. "Your mother's going to kill me if I let you stay up too late."

"Tell me the handprint story," Cas insisted. That one was his favorite, because Dean had a handprint on his shoulder where Castiel the angel picked him up and carried him out of Hell. One day Cas was going to meet his namesake and thank him for saving his daddy from Hell so that Cas could have him all to his very own.

"That one's kinda scary, kiddo," Dean said.

"It's my favorite!" Besides, he didn't think it was scary. He thought it was cool that Dean used to have a friend with superpowers.

Dean sighed, but he was still smiling. "Okay," he said at last. He settled in, scooting onto the end of Cas's bed so they could be closer and he could tell the story in a whisper. Cas liked the whisper stories; they were scarier, but they were also more exciting. "Once upon a time, there were two hunters—brothers named Sam and Dean."

Cas pulled the covers up tighter, closer to his face. He liked the stories when Sam and Dean were both together.

"One day, Sam got hurt real bad, and Dean asked the bad guys to save Sam. He said—"

"Please let my brother go and take me instead!" Cas supplied for him. He liked to be able to say all the good parts, and plus, Cas was better at being dramatic. He had seen it on TV.

Dean smiled again. "So the bad guys took Dean to this place called Hell. He was there for forty whole years, and the whole time he was there, the bad guys were mean to him."

"Did they call him names?"

"Lots of awful, dirty names," Dean said.

"Did they pick on him?"

"All the time."

"Did they give him a wedgie?"

Dean stopped his story and raised his eyebrows at Cas. That wasn't part of the usual routine when Dean told the story. Usually, Cas would ask if Dean was sad, and Dean would say that of course he was, but that was because he wasn't with Sam. "Cas," he said quietly, "have the neighbor kids been picking on you?"

"No," Cas said. He didn't let kids pick on him, and they were too scared to, anyway. Cas had a big brother named Ben who was a whole eighteen years old, and he hunted the things in closets with Uncle Sam sometimes when he wasn't working in the garage down the street where Dean worked, so he could be pretty scary to the mean kids in Cas's neighborhood. "But they were picking on Junie, so I told them to stop."

"And did they stop?"

"No."

"So what did you do?"

"I hit him," Cas said.

Dean was trying very hard not to smile. "Cas, you shouldn't hit kids," he said, but he was smiling anyway, so Cas knew Dean was proud of him.

"He had it coming, and Ben says I shouldn't let bullies get away with anything," Cas insisted. He knew he was right because Ben told him stories about how Dean taught him to kick bullies in the place that hurt the most. When Cas was bigger, Dean would teach him that, too, but for now, cas had Ben to teach him all the things he wasn't supposed to learn yet.

Dean just shook his head. "Cas, what am I gonna do with you?"

"Chuck me to the moon!" Cas said. That was what Uncle Benny said all the time, that he was gonna chuck Cas to the moon. And then he would throw him up in the air like he was really Castiel the angel. (Uncle Benny also said that he was the crazy aunt of the family, and Dean seemed to think that was really funny, but Uncle Benny was an uncle, not an aunt, so Cas thought they were just being silly.) "You gotta finish the story, Dean."

And then his big brother, Ben, swooped into the room. He had been hiding in the shadows so Cas couldn't see him, and he shrieked in delight as Ben tickled him. He didn't get to see his big brother much, not now that Ben had graduated high school and Dean had fixed him up a car. (Ben told him about the car, said it was a "reed-stored sixty-six Car vet," which meant that maybe his car fixed up sixty-six hurt animals that other cars ran over one time.)

"Was Dean telling you the handprint story?" Ben asked once he was done tickling.

Cas hiccoughed. "Yeah!"

"Where was he?"

"The bullies were teasing Dean in . . . ." Cas leaned forward, since Mommy said he wasn't supposed to swear. "They teased him in Hell." He giggled. Ben and Dean let him swear, but he wasn't supposed to tell Mommy that, even though Hell was a real place and not a swear word, according to Ben.

"And then Castiel the avenging angel came swooping in!" Ben said. He knew the story really well, too, and he was much better at acting it out than Dean was. He made flapping noises with his wings, then jumped onto the edge of Cas's bed, nearly knocking Dean over.

Dean was laughing now. "And Castiel fought all the bad guys away—" (Ben pretended to sword-fight with invisible bad guys) "—and _woosh!_"

Ben, at this point, reached under the covers, picked up Cas, and grabbed him up into his arms. "He picked Dean right up out of Hell and saved him!"

Cas shrieked in delight as Ben proceeded to fly him around the room and plop him right back down in his bed, ending the story like Dean always did: "And bam! Next thing Dean knew, he was awake in a field with a big ol' handprint on his shoulder where Castiel touched him in Hell."

Dean rolled up his sleeve like he always did to show Cas the handprint, and Cas would always place his tiny hand on Dean's shoulder. One day, maybe, Cas's hand would be big enough to be like Castiel's hands. One day, when he grew up, he was going to be a superhero, too.

"One day, Cas, you're going to be a hero just like Castiel the angel," Dean said. That was always the end of the story. He always made that promise. And Cas knew it was true because Dean didn't tell him things that weren't true.

"And don't you forget it!" Cas said. He pretended to sword-fight again with Ben, and Ben let him win this time. (Sometimes Ben would pretend to beat Cas, and then Cas was really good at pretending to die, but Ben was also good at falling over without catching himself with his hands.)

"Okay, okay," Dean said at last. He picked Cas up underneath his arms and set him back down inside the covers. "We were supposed to be calming down for bed, and now you've made him all hyper," he said to Ben.

"Aw, come on. You know he loves me," Ben said.

Cas nodded. He did love his big brother. Lots and lots.

Dean just laughed and shook his head. "Give me a minute, okay? I want to hear about what you and Sam found out."

Ben nodded and left the room, waiting out in the hallway. When he was sure Ben was gone, Dean turned back to Cas. He tucked the covers in around him so that he couldn't be wriggly, then patted his hair. "Alright, Cas. It's time for little angels to go to sleep now."

"And you'll protect me from all the monsters?" Cas asked.

"Every single one of them," Dean promised.

Cas snuggled down in his covers and turned over, closing his eyes. Dean stayed next to him for a long time, patting his hair and rubbing his back, and he didn't leave until he thought Cas was asleep.

But Cas was awake, and he sneaked out of bed once Dean left to go listen at the door. He wanted to hear Ben tell about the monsters he saved people from. Cas's big brother was a hero, just like his daddy, and one day, Cas was going to be just like them.

"I thought we agreed that you'd at least _try _to live a normal life," Dean whispered. He was trying not to wake Mommy, who was sleeping a lot more than usual.

"What, so Cas is the only one you're going to teach to hunt?" Ben shot back. He and Dean had this fight a lot, and Dean was losing because Uncle Sam was a "bad influence." "Besides, we think we found MacLeod's bones."

"For real this time?"

"There's a couple dozen ghouls and a nest of vampires in the area. Yeah, we're thinking he paid them off to guard him."

Dean looked thoughtful. "I mean, we've tried it before, and it didn't work."

"We're pretty sure this time. And it's not like we've got a double-agent angel getting us the bones this time. And anyway, even if it doesn't kill him, it's guaranteed to at least slow him down, weaken him. He's been getting stronger, you know."

"I know." Dean looked sad, and Cas remembered seeing that sad face a month ago when he got back from being gone for three weeks. He had come back with staples in his head, and his eye was purple, but Cas pretended not to notice because Mommy said Dean didn't like to talk about those things.

"I can run the garage," Ben offered. "You and Sam should check this one out. I'd only get in the way." Ben looked sad, and Cas wanted to tell him not to worry, that he was a really good hunter and that Dean thought so too, even if he only told Mommy that and not Ben.

Dean tilted his head at Ben. He looked at him for a really long time, and Cas knew he was thinking. He had thinky face. "It wouldn't be too awful to have some backup," he said slowly.

And then Cas leaned too far into the floor, and the boards underneath him creaked. He tried to run back to his bed and pretend his was asleep, but he didn't get under the covers in time, and Dean was standing there in the doorway with the look that meant he was in trouble for something.

"Cas," he said, "you're supposed to be asleep right now."

"Are you gonna leave, Dean? Are you gonna be gone again?" Cas didn't like it when Dean was gone, even if he had a very good reason to leave because he was a hero and he saved people.

Dean sat down on the edge of Cas's bed and smiled. "Your brother and I are going to go try to stop a bad guy."

"He must be really bad if you both have to leave," Cas said. Dean and his brother never left at the same time; one of them was always around to take care of him and Mommy.

"Don't you worry," Dean said. "I promised you I was going to raise you up right, and I'm not about to break that promise." He ruffled Cas's hair. "We'll both come back in one piece; just you wait."

"But how long will you be gone?"

"Shouldn't be more than a couple days. I'll have Uncle Benny come visit."

Cas smiled. He liked Uncle Benny. Uncle Benny was a vampire, so he could throw Cas so high that he could pretend he was Castiel the angel—but Uncle Benny said not to tell Dean about the flying lessons. "Okay. Are you sure?" he asked.

"I'll call home every night," Dean promised. "And you have to promise me something, okay kiddo?"

"Uh-huh."

"You've gotta take care of your mom, okay? She's not feeling very good, and she needs her little angel to take care of her. You got that?"

"Is my new baby brother giving Mommy an upset tummy?" Cas asked.

Dean laughed. "Why do you think it's a brother?"

"Because I want to have a Sammy like you have," Cas said.

Dean smiled again. "Okay, then. Well, you take care of your baby brother and your mom while we're gone. I'll call every night to make sure you're sticking to this. Think you can handle that?"

Cas nodded. "I'll be Mommy's angel."

"That's my boy."


	12. Chapter 12

__A/N: Thank you to everyone who has continued to support me in this, especially my roommates, who have to put up with me writing every day and trying to explain to them all the plans I have running around in my head.

Disclaimer: I still don't own anything related to Supernatural. All rights belong to their respective owners.

_..._

_Dean,_

_I don't want you to think that you'll have to drop everything for me. If I know you, after all these years, I know you'll give up too much for this, and that's exactly what I don't want. _

_I don't want you to give up the life you've got. I know you'll never give up hunting, and I know I've left you at a very inconvenient time. I know there are problems that need solving, and I'm only sorry that I won't be around to help you. _

_But you were a great hunter before you knew me, and you'll be an amazing hunter long after I leave. Keep hunting, Dean. Keep saving people. That's what you do best._

_Don't get rid of the Impala. Don't drop everything and try to live a life you know you don't want. You've got a purpose to your life, and you've chosen that purpose for yourself. After everything we've been through, I'm the last person to ever inflict a life on you that you didn't ask for. _

_But just promise me that I can still be a part of your life even though I'll have changed. _

_~Castiel_

…

" . . . and Mommy was really sick, so I got her some ice cream because that always makes me feel not sick anymore."

"Atta boy," Dean said. He grinned over at Ben, who had just finished checking their luggage. They were meeting Sam at the London airport, and Ben had arranged everything with their flights. (Just as well. Dean still didn't like flying.) "Is Mommy there?"

"Uh-huh."

"Can you put her on the phone?"

"Uh-huh." Dean could hear the pitter-patter of little footsteps on a wooden floor, then Lisa's tired voice.

"Dean?"

Dean smiled. "Hey, Lis. It's good to hear your voice."

"And yours," Lisa said. She sounded awful. The morning sickness was really starting to get to her, and she was a little old to still be having kids, even with the angel healing stuff in her insides. "I heard you're actually getting on a plane."

"We're not talking about it," Dean said. The last time he had flown anywhere, a demon tried to crash the plane. He made Sam swear not to do that to him again, but this time was a little harder. They could take a boat, sure, but then Dean would be gone for way too long, and he didn't like leaving Lisa with just Benny. "How are you and Cas doing?"

"He's a little trooper," Lisa said, and Dean could hear giggling on the other end.

"Are you being safe?"

Lisa sighed. He knew he was being overbearing, and he knew that she had a problem with that last time, but he was much better about it when he was home. But when he was gone, he got a little tense. "Dean, we've been through this."

"Humor me."

She sighed again. "I've salted the doors and windows. Everything's been locked down, and Benny's on night patrol outside. And Garth's here."

"Garth's there?"

"Sam called him."

Dean relaxed only a little bit. Garth was a good guy and all, and he had his heart in the right place, but Dean had hoped to keep this in the family. If he was taking Garth away from a hunt just to watch out for Lisa and Cas and nothing happened . . . . The other hunters already made fun of him for being a family man. It was bad enough without his paranoia taking other hunters from their work.

"Look, Dean, we'll be fine here, we . . . . What is it, baby?" She laughed. "Oh, hold on. Cas wants to say goodbye to you."

"Put him on again."

"Dean, Uncle Benny doesn't know the handprint story!" Cas said. He sounded absolutely mortified. "He said I could teach it to him for bedtime tonight."

"Benny's doing bedtime?" Dean grinned over at Ben. (They were in the security line now, so he would have to turn off his phone soon.) That was a sight he would have paid to see.

"Well, he's gonna let me do the bedtime story, and then Mommy's gonna tuck me in," Cas said. "I wish you were here to do it."

"Hey," Dean said. "What did I tell you about what you do when I'm gone?"

"Take care of Mommy?"

Dean laughed. "Yeah, and what else?"

"Be like Castiel the angel and don't get my feathers ruffled with worry."

"That's right," Dean said. He looked up; they were almost at the front of the line. "Listen, Cas. I've got to go now, but you be a good little angel, and I'll see you just as soon as I can, okay?"

"I love you, Dean."

Dean couldn't help smiling when little Cas said that. It wasn't something he would have—could have—ever said out loud to Castiel, but this kid . . . . He shook his head. "I love you too, Cas." And then he hung up the phone.

Ben had been watching him the whole time. They both put their things in the little plastic boxes to walk through the screen, and when they got through, Ben asked, "Is it weird?"

"Of course it is."

"Even after three years?"

"Ben, I knew this guy for much longer than that. I used to _pray _to the guy. And now I've potty trained him and taught him how to read, and it's probably the weirdest thing I've done in a job full of weird things."

Ben nodded. They made their way to the gate in relative silence, but easy silence, just walking together. They hadn't done this in a while, hunted together. Usually they only went together when Sam was around to babysit, and then only if Dean was sure it would take one or two days tops. Dean tried to do as much of it on his own as possible, but the older Ben got, the harder it was to keep him out of the life when he was so determined to become a hunter no matter what Dean did. It was like raising Sam all over again, but Ben wanted in the life, not out.

But some things got better with time, and even though Dean still hated the fact that Ben was a hunter, he knew a good one when he saw one. Ben was a natural at this, like he was born for it, like it was in his blood.

"I wonder what life will be like after Crowley," Ben mused out loud.

"Quieter," Dean said. "And less British." He hadn't noticed it before, but when he tried to speak, he did—the tightness in his chest. He could see the planes now, and they were going to board any minute now. How did he let himself get talked into this, again?

"It's a long flight. Do you want to take something to sleep through it?" Ben asked.

Dean shook his head.

"If you insist."

And it was a long flight. It took hours, and most of the other passengers slept through it. But not Dean. Dean was aware of every single pocket of turbulence, every noise the engine made. He'd been in a crashing plane before, and he had no intention of ever reliving that experience, especially not with Ben by his side.

So, of course, as soon as Sam picked them up from the airport, he fell asleep in the back of the rental car.

When he woke up again, they were almost to the cemetery. He could tell because Sam had slowed down and pulled out his knife; Ben had done the same.

"Why doesn't anyone wake me when something exciting is going on?" he asked. He stretched; his neck was sore. He was getting older now. He would turn forty in just over a week, and that was a milestone in a hunter's life, especially someone like him who had grown up in the life. The older hunters were the ones who got into it later in life, the ones who hadn't had the years of putting their lives on the line to get themselves killed. But Dean had somehow managed to make it this long—even despite dying a couple times—and now his body was protesting. Maybe it was a good thing to have Ben along after all; Dean was getting slower.

"Here," Sam said. He threw Castiel's angel blade to him, and Dean caught it. This was the only angel blade left on Earth, and Dean knew it could actually hurt Crowley. Between that and the demon knife, they actually had a shot at killing him, especially if they slowed him down by burning his bones. But there was no telling, not really. There was no other fallen-angel-demon they could test out their theory on.

Sam pulled the car over a good distance from the cemetery. All three hunters tumbled out of the car, knives raised, ready to behead anything that came within striking distance. Dean had the blade, Sam had Ruby's knife, and Ben had borrowed Dean's spear from Purgatory—it gave him more leverage, and he was the least trained out of the three of them.

It didn't take long for the attack to start. Three ghouls were on Dean before he could blink, but he had a gun as well as a blade, and he was still a good shot. And Ben was good backup; he sliced their heads off before they could recover from the bullets, while Sam was already wrestling with a vampire nearby.

It felt good to be out hunting again. It felt natural, chopping and slashing. He'd described Purgatory as pure, but what was really pure about it was the hunt. The sense that everything was black and white again. There were just monsters and people that killed them, no complicated master plots, no Apocalypse, no moral grey area. Just monsters and hunters. That was what was pure about everything.

He and Sam fell into an easy rhythm with each other; they had been doing this together their whole lives. Sam backed into Dean and ducked, and when Dean felt him ducking, he turned and slashed, and down went the vampire.

Ben was doing well on his own, to the kid's credit. It probably helped that the energy or aura or whatever it was that he was putting off terrified the monsters and disoriented them when he got close. Plus the vamps and the ghouls knew that the Winchester boys were the real threat, so they had focused most of their attack on Dean and Sam. That was perfectly fine with Dean; he didn't want Ben in danger, anyway.

They had slashed their way through most of the monsters before they hit a snag. Well, it was more like they hit a wall—or like a wall hit Dean.

He could feel a power ripping into him, and he looked down to see that he was bleeding. He tasted metal—the familiar taste of blood—and he felt his limbs going weak. Crowley.

"Hello, boys," came the usual greeting. "I see you've found my breadcrumbs."

"Crowley," Dean managed to say through the mouthful of warm blood.

"Dean," Crowley said right back at him. "How's life on the other side? Still changing angel diapers?"

Dean just glared at Crowley. He had dropped the angel blade when Crowley hit him with whatever spell that was, and now Ben was close to it—though he was also doubled over and bleeding; Dean would make sure Crowley suffered for that. If he could keep Crowley's attention for long enough . . . .

"I really am pleased to see you all," Crowley said. He turned his attention away from Dean to Sam, who was similarly bleeding and struggling. "It's nice when all my loose ends hand themselves over to me."

Ben's fingers found the angel blade, and he lunged forward with all his strength. Crowley saw it coming at the last minute, so he turned away, but the blade nicked him, and he leaked a little bit. Red smoke, not blood.

Crowley blasted Ben back several feet, and Ben hit his head on one of the tombstones. Dean gritted his teeth. "You do that to my kid, I'll kill you," he said through his teeth.

"Afraid I'll hurt little Dean Junior?" Crowley sneered.

Dean could see two things. First, Crowley was struggling to keep his power over them. He probably could have killed all three of them, but when Ben hurt him, he'd lost his grip. And he was still weak without his connection to Hell, so he didn't have much juice left to finish the job.

Second, Sam was reaching into his jacket pocket.

So Dean knew he had to keep Crowley's attention. "I swear," he said, forcing the words out even though his lungs were on fire, "whatever you do to Ben, I'll give it right back to you ten times worse. You know I can."

"All words and no play makes the Winchesters dull boys," Crowley said, waving his hand to dismiss Dean's threat. "Don't you think you're getting a little old for this?"

"Not quite." That was Sam. He had forced himself up onto his elbows, and he had the Colt aimed right at Crowley's heart. (Like they hadn't known this was almost definitely a trap. Of course they knew Crowley's bones wouldn't be here, but Crowley himself would. They'd come prepared.)

Crowley turned and saw the gun. Sam fired.


	13. Chapter 13

__Disclaimer: I still don't own anything related to Supernatural.

_..._

_Dean,_

_After all that searching, we have the Colt, and hopefully that will help with the Crowley problem. That's probably not something you want to involve me in, at least not in the early years. You can imagine what knowing that the former King of Hell is after you would do to a young mind._

_But do try not to get yourself killed until I'm older, at least old enough to strike out on my own. _

_You probably hate me right now for getting Ben involved. But I had my own selfish reasons for involving Lisa and Ben. I knew you'd stay around for Lisa, but I also know Ben. I've seen what's inside Ben—I couldn't help doing that when you asked me to rearrange his memories. And if ever there was a born hunter—well, besides you and Sam . . . ._

_And I know you'll look out for him just as much as you look out for me. And he'll learn hunting one way or another. Even in the short time you were with him, he was striking out on his own, learning what you wouldn't teach him. And long after you're gone, he'll be trying to live up to the legacy you left him. _

_You'll have both of us to look after. I'm sorry for the responsibility; I know that's the last thing you need on top of everything else we've been through. But I trust you to get us both through, and I know you'll get all three of us into Heaven. You think you can't, but you can. _

_I wouldn't have asked if I didn't think you could do it._

_~Castiel_

…..

Cas recognized the boots on the doorstep. He heard the key in the lock. He crouched down and waited, ready to spring.

_Bam_. The door opened and he flew at Dean, nearly knocking him over.

"Hey, Cas!" Dean laughed, picking him up and swinging him around. "Did you miss us?" But Dean wasn't swinging him as hard as he usually did, and he had stitches in his head. And Ben had an ice pack.

"Dean, what happened? Did you get the bad guy?"

"Almost," Dean said.

"But you _always _get the bad guy!" Cas was shocked. This was unheard of; how could Dean let the bad guy get away? Dean was a hero.

Dean laughed, and so did Ben. "Yeah, we like to think so." He set Cas down on the table with a heavy sigh, and then Mommy came into the room. She was really big because she had Cas's little brother inside of her. "But sometimes they get away and we have to fight them another time."

"Does that mean you're gonna have to go away again?"

"Someday, Squirt. But not today," Dean said. He sounded tired as he leaned over and patted Mommy's tummy. "And how's Joanna today?"

"Cas seems to think it's a Bobby."

"And he gets to decide, does he?" Dean teased. He kissed Mommy on the mouth, which Cas thought was gross, but sometimes Cas didn't tell Dean how gross it was because he knew that Dean liked to kiss Mommy.

Cas frowned. Of course he had a say in things. He had specifically asked Santa to bring him a baby brother for Christmas, after all. But he couldn't say his wishes out loud or they wouldn't come true. "Dean," he said, tugging on the leather jacket sleeves, "Mommy said I could stay up until you got home so you could do bedtime."

"Sure thing, kiddo," Dean said. He picked up Cas and put him on his shoulders and ran all the way back to Cas's room.

…..

Mommy was mad at Dean for a couple weeks after he got home because Dean let Ben get hurt in England. So Dean was mad at Ben for hunting. So Ben took Cas out to play to get away from it all because everybody was mad at each other.

"Can we play pretend?" Cas asked. He was wearing a big brown coat that Dean bought just for him, and he thought it was a very angel-ish coat.

Ben looked distracted. He was mad because Dean only let him hunt sometimes. Ben said that sometimes Dean treated him like he was eight—which Cas thought wasn't all that bad because being eight meant you could play on the big kids' playground—and only treated Ben like a grown up when it was "convenient." Today was not a convenient day.

Cas thought about it for just a minute before he ran up and gave Ben the most ginormous hug his little arms could manage. "It's okay, Ben," Cas whispered. "Dean loves you lots and lots and so do I."

For some reason, that made Ben laugh and hug Cas tighter. "I'm glad you came to our family, Cas," he said.

Cas grinned. He had cheered Ben up, and that made him feel like a superhero, like Castiel the angel. "Can we play pretend now?"

Ben laughed. "Sure. What do you want to play?"

"Let's play Purgatory. You can be Dean, and I'll be Castiel." Cas was always Castiel when they played pretend, even when Castiel was crazy—but those were the most funnest games to play because then Cas could do whatever he wanted and blame it on the crazy.

Ben picked up a big stick that had fallen off of one of the trees for the pretend spear. "Okay," he said. Then he pretended to get a real deep voice like Dean had. "How are we getting out of here?"

"Don't you worry, Dean. I've got your back. Nothing bad can happen to you when Castiel the angel is here to help!"

"I wouldn't be so sure of that."

Cas looked up. There was a man standing underneath the tree in their backyard. He talked kind of funny. Ben immediately dropped the branch and reached for the flask of holy water at his side, and Cas hid behind his big brother; he could tell something was wrong.

"Dean says I'm not supposed to talk to strangers," Cas said.

"Too right," the stranger said. "But I'm not a stranger. I'm a close friend of your father's. We go way back, me and him."

Ben opened his mouth like he was going to say something, but no sound came out. Now Ben looked scared, and that scared Cas more than the stranger did.

The stranger kneeled down in front of Cas, and even though Ben stepped in front of him, the stranger managed to pinch Cas's cheek—which Cas hated—and laughed. "Aren't you the little angel?"

Ben tried to throw the water at the stranger, but the stranger grabbed Ben's hand and twisted it real hard so that Ben dropped the water.

"Hey!" Cas shouted. He jumped out from behind Ben to kick this mean stranger in the shins. "Don't hurt my big brother!"

"Ow," the stranger said dully. But he didn't really sound hurt, and then he had his hand around Cas's wrists, and there was smoke everywhere, and Cas's head hurt.

Cas could hear his heart pounding in his ears. His throat hurt and his eyes stung and he was crying because it felt like fire and he was scared and he didn't feel like Castiel the angel anymore. He just wanted Dean and he wanted to go home.

And then the hurting stopped, and Cas could hear chanting in a strange language that he had never heard of. He recognized the voice, too.

"Dean!" he shouted happily, trying to get away from the stranger.

Dean must have not heard him because he just kept right on chanting. He didn't even really look at Cas or Ben. He was holding a piece of paper with really, really pretty handwriting all over it, so that must have been where he got the weird language stuff from. When he finished chanting, the smoke was gone and Cas's chest didn't hurt anymore. But the stranger still had him by the wrist.

"I see you've learned a few new tricks," the stranger said.

"Let him go or you'll find out what else Cas taught me," Dean said. He looked really scary because he was so mad, but it was more than that. The words seemed to give Dean power and made him look bigger.

"Ah, no," the stranger said as if he had actually been thinking about it before he decided to say no. He gripped Cas's wrist even harder—it hurt, and Cas cried out.

"Let him go or I swear—"

"You'll do what? Kill me? Hate to break it to you, Daddy Day Care, but you gave the moose the Colt."

(Cas didn't really know what the stranger was talking about anymore.)

Dean looked at Cas for the first time since he got there. He gave him the sideways smile that he always gave when he checked Cas's closet for monsters. "Cas," he said, "do you remember what I told you to do?"

Of course he did. Cas knew what he was supposed to do if a bad guy came to get him, but he never thought he would have to actually do any of that stuff. The stranger still had Cas's wrist, so he decided to start there. Cas bit him. And when the stranger shouted, Cas kicked him in the shins again and ran just as fast as his legs could carry him. He probably wouldn't have been fast enough, but Ben swooped in and picked him up and carried him away from the stranger while Dean was running towards the bad guy with an angel blade.

"Ben, what's happening?" Cas asked. He was just barely holding on to Ben's leather jacket, and his hand still hurt where the stranger held him too hard.

"Not now, Cas," Ben said. He ran inside the house and shifted Cas around so that Cas was clinging onto his back. Cas wanted to say that he could walk all by himself, thank you very much, but Ben was super stressed, so Cas kept his mouth shut. Besides, it was a good thing Ben was there. He felt safer with his big brother around.

"Ben?" Mommy came down the stairs. "What's happening?"

"Call Benny," Ben said. He was salting the doors and windows as Cas clung onto his back for dear life.

"Where's Dean?" Mommy asked. She was already reaching for the phone.

"Outside," was all Ben said. Mommy looked really scared, and she reached out to take Cas from Ben, but Ben kept Cas close. "You get Benny," he said, "but Crowley's after Cas, and I'm not letting him out of my sights 'til this is over."

Mommy looked ever more scared than before, and Cas could hear her talking to Benny on the phone while Ben carried him to the basement of the house. There were all sorts of symbols painted in the basement. Ben had promised to tell him about the symbols one day, but Cas thought they looked kind of scary.

"Stay here," Ben said. He left Cas in the room with all the scary weapons and symbols, and Cas climbed into the cot in the middle of the room and pulled the covers up over his head as he heard the door slam.

He heard screaming upstairs, but he kept the covers over his head. He didn't want to look and see what was happening. Dean and Ben would fight away the bad guys; they always did.

He curled up in a little ball, and then, a thought occurred to him. Dean had prayed to Castiel before, so why couldn't Cas do it? Maybe Castiel was up there in Heaven listening.

"Dear Castiel," he said, screwing his eyes shut and folding his hands like he had seen other kids do on TV, "would you please keep my family safe from the bad guys who want to hurt us? Dean says that you can do anything and that you're the best friend he's ever had, and if that's true, I don't know why you haven't come here to help yet because things are pretty bad down here." He frowned, trying to think of something else to say. "You should be here for Dean, Castiel. He needs you lots." He stopped, then realized he forgot something. "Um, oh yeah. Amen."

He sat under the covers for a long time, waiting to hear wings and smiting happening upstairs, but instead, he only heard Mommy screaming and Ben shouting and Dean yelling. Everybody sounded like they were hurt, and still Castiel wasn't there to help.

Dean had lied. Castiel was no hero. He didn't care about Dean at all.


	14. Chapter 14

Disclaimer: I still don't own anything related to Supernatural.

_..._

_Dean,_

_I imagine the hardest part will be the fact that I'm not myself anymore. I won't have the same experiences, the same memories. I'll still be me, but I won't be the same me._

_I hope that makes sense. I wish your language had better descriptive pronouns. _

_But I'm leaving you a loophole. If things are getting hard, you can go to Missouri. I told her to come by when I was twelve years old; I thought I might be ready by then. But if you need me before that, go to her. I'll be able to handle it._

_I can't tell you what all she'll do because I don't think she entirely understands it herself. But she knows what I am asking of her._

_She may be very old by the time you decide to go to her, especially since I know how you feel about bringing people into the life, so you may have to track her down. But the latest you can wait is twelve years; I told Missouri to find you if you haven't come by then, and Sam says she can get you to do whatever she wants. Maybe that's why I went to her, because I knew she could hold you to the promise she made me._

_Please give her a chance to do what she can for me. In her defense, she thinks this is not one of my better plans. You have that in common with her, I think._

_But I will see you soon. I promise. In twelve years or less._

_~Castiel_

…_._

"Where are we going?"

Cas sat in the front seat, assembling and disassembling his gun over and over again. It was a nervous habit he had picked up from Dean over the years, and Dean was not sure whether to feel proud or guilty. Dean smiled over at the kid, who was twelve years old and gangly by now, and just patted his shoulder. "Well, Castiel asked me to give you a present when you turned twelve."

"Yeah. Like he cares what happens to us," Cas frowned. He crossed his arms and glared out the window. It was amazing how, even when he had completely started over with a brand new life and a new family, he still managed to find his way back to pouting and self-loathing. Dean had always said Cas was a child, but this was something else entirely. Was it Dean's fault? Had he taught Cas how to hate rather than experience life?

"Give him a break, Cas. We closed the gates of Heaven. There's only so much that Castiel could do after that," Dean said. They had this conversation a thousand times before, and still Dean could not convince Cas that his old personality wasn't as bad as the kid seemed to think he was. But there were some things Dean just couldn't change.

"That's no excuse. You said Castiel always came when you called, but he won't come for me. He didn't come to save Mom."

Dean frowned. It was hard to watch this, the slow deterioration of all the fairy tales Dean had tried to set up for Cas. He had tried so hard to protect him, had hoped that he could keep him from the truth about monsters and hunting by painting him a picture that was better suited for children. He didn't want Cas to grow up the way he did, always worrying, always checking under the bed. But it was even harder to see Cas turning into Dean.

Dean just hoped he wasn't turning into his father.

"Sometimes," Dean started, then shook his head to try again. "Sometimes the bad guys win, Cas. But it's not your fault or anybody else's fault."

"Ben says it's my fault."

Dean only barely resisted the urge to slam on the brakes. As it was, he turned so fast that his neck actually hurt (but then, his muscles and bones were a little more tired than they used to be). "When did he tell you that?" he demanded.

"A month ago," Cas said, looking down at the floor of the Impala. "When we were working that vampire case together."

Dean frowned. He remembered the case because it was one of the few Ben had brought him in on. It had been nine years, and still Ben had never really forgiven him, not completely. Ben worked on his own as often as possible, but the nest had been too big for him to handle, and he knew when he needed help. And he knew that Dean would always come when he called, too.

Ben had every right to carry a grudge—but to tell Cas something like that? He may have been older, but he was only twelve. How could Ben put something like that on Cas's shoulders?

Cas must have known that Dean was fuming inside because he piped up quickly, "I don't think he knew I was listening. I think he thought I was asleep."

Dean frowned. That didn't excuse Ben's behavior.

Cas gulped. He could tell he had said something wrong, so he tried to change the subject. "How come Sam's not coming with us?"

Dean laughed. For the past nine years, it had been the three of them in the Impala, just like it used to be, except Cas was smaller. But Sam had some "personal crap" to take care of, and Dean had learned not to ask about things like that, not after Dean had used that excuse a thousand times before. "He's working on something on his own," Dean said.

"Why aren't we helping him?"

"Because he wants to do this alone." Dean smiled. Even though Cas was older now, he still hadn't lost his curiosity. It was that curiosity that got Cas into trouble with Heaven in the first place, that drew him to the Winchesters, to humanity, to his Fall. Some things didn't change just because Cas changed species.

"Okay." Cas stopped playing with the guns and looked up at Dean. "Where are we going?"

"Kansas."

"What part?"

"Lawrence."

"That's where you're from, right, Dean?" he asked.

"Uh-huh."

Cas scrunched up his nose—that was his confused face. "I thought you said you didn't want to go back there."

"Well, if I had my way, Missouri would've met us somewhere else, but she's getting old now," Dean said. And it wasn't so bad going back to Lawrence, not anymore. It still stung, and it still brought up memories that he wanted to keep buried for the rest of his life, but it didn't terrify him like it was used to. Maybe it was just that he was older, or maybe it was that he had killed Azazel himself and finally ended that stage of his hunting career.

"Missouri?" Cas repeated. Dean could practically see the cogs turning in that little head. "The psychic? Why are we going to visit her?"

"Castiel left your present with her, I think," Dean said. "I'm really not sure, but that's where Castiel sent me, so that's where I'm going."

Cas shook his head. "I still think you give him too much credit. I thought blind faith wasn't really your thing."

Dean frowned but said nothing. He couldn't decide if he should tell Cas who Castiel the angel really was or let him go on thinking that they were two separate people. Cas had spent so long hating the idea of the angel that Dean couldn't bring himself to tell the kid that this fallen hero of his childhood was actually living somewhere inside him. He didn't want to pop the kid's bubble. If he could keep Cas's innocence intact for as long as possible, that was what he would do, even if it meant fudging the truth a little bit.

They pulled into Missouri's place half an hour later. The house really hadn't changed much, although it didn't look as neatly kept as it used to. But that was to be expected. Missouri was getting old now, and Dean hadn't seen her for a couple decades now, so he could only assume that she wasn't doing so well for herself. After all, she should probably have died of old age by this point. It was her sheer stubbornness that was keeping her alive, Dean would bet.

They knocked on the front door, and the familiar, high voice answered. "The door's unlocked, sugar!"

Dean pushed open the door and peeked inside. She hadn't changed the place hardly at all. All the decorations were just like he remembered them, right down to the awkward room where her customers would wait.

"I cleared my day for you," Missouri explained as she came rolling out from around the corner. Her hair was gray, her skin was wrinkled, and she needed a wheelchair to get around, but other than that, she really hadn't changed much. "I figured you would wait until his twelfth birthday before you came to see me. If you hadn't come today, I would have come to get you."

Cas looked at Missouri, his head tilted to one side. He seemed to recognize her, but he did not say anything about it.

Missouri wheeled herself over in front of Cas and studied him. "Well, didn't you grow up handsome?" She smiled at him and held out her hand. "You probably don't remember me, but we're gonna change all that very soon."

Dean raised both his eyebrows. "What?"

"Don't you worry your head, Dean," Missouri waved her hand at him. "You just sit down on the couch out here, and I'm just going to borrow your little angel for an hour or two."

Dean could feel his fists clenching, even though this was Missouri he was dealing with. After all, this was _Cas_, and he wasn't going to leave him alone, no matter how old or grown up he thought he was.

Missouri rolled her eyes at him. "Don't swear," she said. When Cas looked questioningly up at her, she explained, "He was thinking it."

Cas grinned. "I like her," he whispered to Dean.

"Of course you do." Cas always liked people who could put Dean off his balance, knock him down a peg. Ever since he got over the stage of his life where he thought Dean hung the moon—which, Dean had to admit, was his favorite part of raising the kid—he liked Sam, Benny, Garth, anyone who knew enough about Dean to tease him or deflate his ego.

Cas looked expectantly up at Dean, and that was when Dean realized the kid was waiting for his permission to go with Missouri. He sighed. "Fine. If you two want to have a private powwow, I guess I'll stick with Cas's plan. It's his life, after all."

Cas looked confused, but he didn't question Dean. He didn't do that when other people around because he knew it made it hard for Dean to do his job when he was distracted. (He was getting older, after all, and he had to work a little harder, concentrate a little deeper.)

Missouri motioned for Cas to follow her through the beads that hung down over the entrance to her workrooms, and Dean sat himself down in the waiting room. He waited a full two minutes before he put his feet up on the coffee table; he remembered Missouri telling him off the last time.

There wasn't really much to do. He didn't have Sam there, and Benny was off on his own again. Ben didn't talk to him anymore. And he'd already read the local papers for anything to do while they were in the area, but he couldn't find anything out of the ordinary. But that was par for the course. Since they closed the Gates of Hell, there had been much less to do. So many hunters had been born from the insanity that was the Apocalypse and the demon activity before and after it, and now there were hardly enough hunts to go around between them.

But Sam and Dean could always find work, and when they couldn't, they could find pleasure. They had taken Cas to Disneyworld a couple years ago, and that had probably been the highlight of the kid's life since they lost Lisa.

Dean frowned. He made it a point not to think about Lisa too much.

He shook his head and took out the journal he had been working on—the hunting journal. He knew he'd probably kick the bucket before Cas did, and he wanted the kid to be plenty prepared. He'd been working on this thing for years now, and he took it out whenever he got the chance.

He spent the better part of an hour working on the journal. At the time, he was writing about the Apocalypse, about angels and demons and what they had been through in the insanity leading up to Sam's nosedive into Hell. He knew that most of this stuff wouldn't be helpful to future hunters, since demons no longer walked the earth—well, except Crowley—and the angels certainly didn't have much to do with this planet anymore. But Dean felt like someone should know what had happened, and maybe they'd be prepared when this stupid planet found a way to open itself up to danger all over again. Dean wouldn't be surprised.

He had just finished writing about killing the Whore when the lights started to flicker. He looked up, narrowed his eyes, but couldn't decide if he should be worried. He was at Missouri's house, after all, and she would have sensed if something evil was around.

But then he heard Cas screaming downstairs, and he didn't even bother to put the journal away in case some unsuspecting customer came in and started looking it over. He was through the beads and down the stairs in a matter of seconds, holding Cas's old angel blade in one hand and a gun in the other and breathing heavily.

Cas was lying on a cot in the middle of the room, and Missouri was sitting next to him, patting his hair and trying to shush him, to reassure him. Dean stuffed his weapons back in his jacket. "What are you doing to him?" he demanded.

Missouri waved him away. "Hush now. He's starting to remember."

Dean opened his mouth, but she shushed him again before he could say anything. He frowned at her, but it was hard to argue with Missouri; he had never been able to before, so why should he be able to now?

Cas had stopped screaming, though. He was covered in sweat, and so was Missouri, but he was starting to relax again. His eyes had been closed, but now he turned his head and opened them—slowly, carefully. His eyes took in everything—Dean, Missouri, the room—before he let a slow smile creep over his face. "I knew you would keep your word, Missouri," he said. The voice was the same, but he sounded, somehow, older.

Dean stared at Cas for a long time before understanding set in. "Cas?" he asked quietly. He took a step forward, and Missouri wheeled herself out of the way.

Cas just nodded. "Hello, Dean."


	15. Chapter 15

A/N: This is going to have ninteen chapters, I've decided. Nine chapters in each part, plus an epilogue. Just so you know.

Disclaimer: I still don't own anything related to Supernatural.

...

His head hurt, but he wasn't about to admit that.

Dean was looking at him strangely, with his arms halfway outstretched, like he was thinking about hugging him but wasn't sure if that was still allowed. Missouri had moved out of the room; she could tell they needed some time to themselves.

"Cas?" Dean said again, like he couldn't really believe it.

Cas nodded. "It's been a long time," he said.

Dean just nodded. He didn't seem to be able to find words yet, and that didn't usually happen with Dean.

"I'm sorry," Cas said. He figured that was a good place to start. "I know these last years have been hard for you, and I really had no right to ask—"

And then Dean had his arms around him. Then Dean was hugging him so close and so tight that the apology died in Cas's throat. "I missed you, Cas," Dean said.

"I know."

"Don't you ever do that to me again," Dean said. He backed away from the hug and glared at his friend. "I know I've called you a baby before, but it's another thing entirely to actually become one."

"At least you know I won't be doing it again," Cas pointed out. "I only have one life to live now."

"Yeah." Dean just fell silent, shaking his head and staring at Cas. Finally, after a long silence, Dean asked, "How do you feel?"

"A little weary," Cas admitted. "I have the memories of two separate lives inside my head trying to reconcile with each other." They were still a little fuzzy, but as he remembered more and more of the details of all Dean had done these past twelve years, he frowned. "I thought I told you to tell me the truth about my life as Castiel," he said.

"I did. I told you stories all the time, but I didn't know you'd be coming back, so how was I supposed to know you wanted me to be angel-training you and telling you who you really were?" Dean shot back.

"That's not what I mean." Cas shook his head. He should have known better than to start with something like that. Of course Dean had done what he asked. Of course he had done what he thought was best given what he knew. He wasn't doubting Dean's ability to get him through. But . . . . "I asked you to tell the truth about what I did as Castiel, and the stories you told me were far from truth."

"Yeah, well, that's how I saw things. Bite me," Dean muttered, looking down at the ground.

Cas could not help but sigh and smile. The way Dean told the stories, Castiel was a hero, a good friend, someone to be counted on. Castiel was a role model, and as a human, Cas had wanted to be like the Castiel Dean believed in. Even now, when he really _was _Castiel again, Cas wanted to be like Dean's version. That version was so much better than the real thing. "You made me out to be some kind of hero," he said. "I'm not."

Dean rolled his eyes. "I've already been through this with the little you. If you can't handle a compliment, get over yourself." But he was smiling.

Missouri wheeled herself back in (apparently, she had decided that she waited the appropriate amount of time before reinserting herself into the situation), and she was dragging a grinning Sam behind her.

"You knew about this?" Dean demanded. He whirled on his brother, who held his hands up defensively.

"Hey, I didn't know," Sam said, still smiling. "Missouri called me and asked me to lay low for a while. She thought it might go easier if it was just you and Cas."

"Less people to deal with," Missouri explained. "Besides, I could tell Dean needed to be here to see this for himself. I'm just trying to uncomplicated your situation, honey." She looked right at Dean, who looked uncomfortable knowing Missouri could root around in his head.

Dean shook his head but decided not to argue. Instead, he just nodded at Missouri. "Well," he said, "thanks for putting Cas back together. I really appreciate that. But if it's all the same, I'd rather not stick around any longer than I have to."

Missouri frowned. "Don't you think about leaving my house before Castiel here is completely back to his old self."

Cas tried to tell her that he was just fine, but his head hurt, and he knew from personal experience that it was hard to argue with Missouri. Besides, he was hungry. This twelve-year-old body needed to eat a lot more than Cas had expected. How did Dean keep him fed without going bankrupt?

"There's some apple pie in the fridge." Missouri had been talking to Cas, but Dean also perked up at the mention of pie, so she sighed and waved her hand. "I suppose you can have some, too, but don't go eating it all!"

Dean didn't need telling twice. Now that the danger had passed, he was bounding up the stairs with more energy and less tension in his step.

Cas followed Dean quietly. He was mulling over the last twelve years in his head, trying to reconcile them with the thousands and thousands of years that he also remembered. The Dean of those twelve years was kinder, more caring—something Cas had never seen before. Dean wasn't supposed to act like that. But that Dean was still less happy than this Dean, the one he was seeing right now. It was like someone had taken the weight of the world off of this Dean's shoulders, and he kept glancing back at Cas to make sure he was really there.

They made their way up to the kitchen, but Dean got to the pie first, and he was already cutting himself a piece before Cas caught up. Oh, right. Shorter legs.

"So, how much of little Cas is in there, and how much of you?" Dean asked. He cut Cas a piece of pie, too, and Cas noticed that his was bigger, but he decided not to say anything. At this point, it was a force of habit for Dean, part of what would have made him the perfect father in another life.

"Everything from both lives is somewhere up here," Cas said, pointing up to his forehead. "Somewhere. I can't remember all of it at once; I don't think the human mind can take everything I used to know."

"So you're mostly Castiel and sometimes just Cas?"

"I'm not sure I understand."

"Never mind." Dean just looked down at his pie with a smile—a real smile, and not the kind he had been plastering on his face for the better part of nine years.

Nine years. Cas frowned when he remembered why Dean hadn't been smiling much lately. "Dean," he said suddenly.

Dean looked up from his pie. His mouth was full.

"I'm sorry."

Dean swallowed. "About which part? The part where you left me on my own for years to raise a baby who looks and acts like you? Or the part where you didn't trust me enough to let me in on your plans?"

"I'm sorry about Lisa," he said. "And your son."

Dean frowned again and looked down at the pie. "That wasn't your fault."

"Of course it was."

"No, it wasn't," Dean said again, more forcefully this time. "That was all me, Cas. You were a kid, and you didn't know what kind of danger you were in. And I shouldn't have let Lisa and Ben into the life in the first place. As soon as you were born, I should have taken you and run as far away from them as I could get." He shook his head. "But you wanted the apple pie life," he said, gesturing to the slice on his plate for emphasis, "and I tried—I tried _so hard_—to give it to you." Dean shook his head again. "Shoulda known better."

Cas frowned. That was the same old Dean he used to know. He could always find a way to turn things around on himself. Never mind that Cas was the one to track Lisa down. Never mind that Cas wanted that life for himself. Never mind that Cas was the selfish one who forced people into decisions they never wanted for themselves. "I should have realized," he said quietly. And they went back to eating their pie in peace.

It only took a few minutes for Sam to finish talking with Missouri and come up the stairs, but it felt much longer than that because he and Dean weren't talking. When Sam did get there, he took a minute to size up the situation and sighed, shaking his head. "Let's hit the road," he said to Dean. "Missouri says there's an angry spirit a few miles up the road, and a new family's supposed to move into the house next week."

Dean was already standing as soon as Sam came into the room. "Sounds like our kind of thing," he said. He already had the keys to the Impala in hand.

"Uh-uh," Missouri said from the doorway. "Don't you think about leaving before you clean up after yourself. You better wash those dishes, Dean Winchester; didn't you learn any manners?"

Dean flushed, and Cas grinned. Yes, there was definitely a reason he had trusted Missouri to get them through this. Missouri was about the only person Cas knew who could keep Dean in line.

Sam and Cas waited outside Missouri's house while Missouri instructed Dean on the finer points of wiping down counters and scrubbing dishes, laughing quietly at Dean's mortified expression as she found more for him to do before he could leave.

"It's good to have you back," Sam said to Cas when he thought Dean wasn't looking. "It's been hard on him, you know."

"I know," Cas said. He had known it would be hard, but seeing the results of his actions was something else entirely. "Maybe," he said slowly, "maybe I should have waited."

"Waited for what? A different family to come along?" Sam shook his head. "Look, I get why you did what you did. But Dean . . . ."

"I know." Cas shook his head. "It will take some time before I can make it up to him."

"Not sure what you'd be making up to him," Sam said. "He won't admit it, but Dean's been loving every second of this, as weird and messed up as it is."

"I know." And he did know. Cas was very aware of Dean's special affinity for children. If he'd been born anything but a Winchester . . . .

Sam just kept staring at him.

"What?"

Sam laughed. "It's just . . . so weird. You're _twelve_."

"I'm actually much older than that."

"Yesterday you wanted to watch the new Star Wars," Sam pointed out.

Cas frowned. "Yesterday I was not aware—"

"Yeah, yeah," Sam waved him off. He grinned into the house when he saw Dean was coming. "Missouri straighten you out?"

"Shut up," Dean muttered. He had the keys to the Impala in his hand; he was determined to get home and away from any more chores before Missouri could come up with something else for him to do. Cas thought Missouri seemed to take a special pleasure in bossing Dean around. The twelve-year-old part of him thought it actually looked kind of fun.

"So, are we headed to check out that angry spirit?" Cas asked as he climbed in the backseat. He always sat in the back; the front seat was reserved for Sam, even when Cas was tall enough to ride in the front.

Dean looked at him in his rearview mirror, clicked his tongue, and sighed. "This is weird," he declared. "It's gonna take some serious getting used to hearing the old you coming out of the kid you."


	16. Chapter 16

A/N: So I'm sitting in an airport right now and I'm going to be travelling all day. Good news? This means I'm getting lots of writing done. Bad news (that's also sort of good news)? This also means I won't be around when I usually post new chapters. So have this one early! :) Just know that I'll do my best to get the last three chapters up in the time I usually post chapters, but Christmas Break has just started, so . . . no promises.

Disclaimer: I don't own anything related to Supernatural. Nor do I own the rights to anything related to Aerosmith.

...

"You ready for this?"

Sam nodded as he tucked the Colt into his jacket. Cas just looked at the spear Dean had given him. "Remind me again why I can't have my blade back."

"Sorry, Cas. You must be this tall to ride," Dean said. He held his hand up to just below his ears. He grinned as Cas frowned at him; the kid was seventeen years old now, and he was getting pretty tall. He even sort of looked like the old Cas now, if a bit younger. But he was still just seventeen.

Cas just rolled his eyes at him. (If there was one thing Dean was proud of teaching Cas in almost two decades, it was sarcasm.) "Dean, you're fifty-three years old. Don't you think you should leave the real work to someone with better reflexes?"

"Right. Because I'm definitely trusting Crowley's defeat to a teenager." Dean just gripped the angel blade harder.

"Okay, let's try this then: give me back what's mine or I'll take it from you."

"I'd like to see you try." Dean might have been older than he used to be, but he'd been taking good care of himself (at Sam's insistence). He could still take Cas in a fair fight—though, he knew, he would not be able to keep up at this pace for much longer. Once they dealt with Crowley, they'd limit themselves to smaller cases for a while, at least until Dean's muscles stopped aching after every kill.

"Okay, girls, you're both pretty," Sam said. (Dean glared at him.) "Are we going or not?"

Cas just laughed and opened the back door of the Impala. "Okay, get in everybody. Let's catch us the last demon."

Dean slipped into the front seat and flipped through his music. He was trying to find something suitable to play, a good anthem for the end of a hunt that had taken them far too long, but Cas just reached forward and grabbed one of the cassette tapes. "You know, Dean," he said as he picked out the one he wanted, "Sam's right. He installed a jack in your car for a reason. Do you think you could be only a couple decades behind with your music?"

"Don't you start, too," Dean groaned. Sometimes he forgot that Sam had a hand in raising Cas, too, and Sam seemed to think Cas needed to know about more modern stuff. What was wrong with the classics?

Sam just grinned at the two of them. He did that a lot lately, just grinning at them and not saying anything. The older Cas got, the more Sam did that, and it was frankly annoying. He was enjoying Cas talking back to Dean way more than he should have—probably because Cas didn't do that before he Fell.

Cas passed up one of the cassettes, and Dean didn't really look at it before he put it in the tape player. But he grinned when he heard the familiar starting chords to "Dream On." He started the car and let the hum of the Impala's engine sync up with the bass. He pulled out of the driveway, grinning over at Sam.

"What?"

Dean just grinned. He didn't say out loud how proud he was that Cas could pick out his own classic rock songs for any situation. Instead, he said, "Come on. You know you know the words."

Sam just shook his head. Some things never changed.

So Dean decided to start up the karaoke. "Half my life's in books, written pages."

To Dean's surprise, Cas started in with his deep bass. "Live and learn from fools and from sages."

Sam looked at the two of them as they sang together ("You know it's true—all these things you do come back to you") and shook his head, grinning. Finally, he gave in, and Dean turned up the music. He threw back his head to sing along with Cas and Sam:

"Sing with me, sing for the years

Sing for the laughter, sing for the tears

Sing with me, just for today

Maybe tomorrow the good Lord will take you away."

The karaoke only got better, of course, especially when they got to the "dream on"s. Dean couldn't hit the high notes, and neither could Cas, but Sam could get pretty close, and that wasn't to say they didn't try. (Cas and Dean ended up just lip-syncing and pretending they could hit the notes, and Cas started in with the air guitar—that was another thing Dean was proud to teach him.)

Dean leaned back, grinning, living in the moment. They hadn't done this in a long time, singing and laughing and just being a family. That's what they were—Cas had earned a place in the family, and even Sam admitted it.

But the mood sobered the closer they got to the outskirts of town. He turned the music down; he had been planning to blast rock anthems all the way up to Crowley's front door, but the closer they got, the more they were on edge. They were watching, waiting—they could see things moving in the shadows and knew they had to be on alert.

It was too quiet in the car, and they could hear nothing but the Impala's engine purring. (Other cars had, by this point, been updated so you couldn't hear the engine, but Dean liked the sound his car made; it let him know everything was running smooth.) Cas looked out the window on Dean's side, gripping the spear tightly, while Sam kept watch on the other side. Dean just stared out the windshield, gripping the steering wheel tighter with every passing moment.

_Thud_. The first of the outer defenses landed on the hood. Dean swerved, and whatever it was—he hadn't had the chance to get a good look at it before it went flying—fell off. Dean floored it, speeding through the trees, swerving when anything popped up that looked dangerous, careful not to let them scratch his baby if he could help it.

And then they were there, pulling up to the little shack. It had been years, and still Crowley wasn't back up to his full powers, so he had been forced to abandon the lifestyle he had grown accustomed to. Still, it wasn't so bad for a place in the middle of nowhere. Dean figured Crowley must have used a little of his remaining energy to fix the place up; there was no way a little shack should have had walls and appliances that nice.

Almost as soon as they were out of the Impala, there were monsters on every side of them. Dean didn't know what Crowley had done to convince all these creatures to work for him, to trust him even without his powers, but whatever it was, Dean wanted a piece of it. He could use that kind of convincing power to get Cas and Sam to stop teaming up on him in the biannual prank wars.

"Hiya kids," Dean grinned at the monsters. "Is your boss home? We'd like a word with him."

The nearest vamp—who, if Dean was being honest, was actually very hot—smiled softly at him and bit her lip. "And he'd like a word with you, pretty boy," she said, and Dean was actually disappointed to realize she was talking to Cas. But then again, he was getting on, and his hair was turning grey, and Cas was young.

"You know something?" Dean muttered to Cas. "I think I missed this."

"What? Mortal peril? Impossible odds?"

"Yeah, that," Dean said, "and the feeling—you know, us versus them, all or nothing."

"Adrenaline junkie." Cas rolled his eyes.

"Killjoy."

Sam rolled his eyes at both of them. "Look out!" he shouted, ducking to avoid a vampire as it lunged for him. Cas was there first, though—he had a good reach with that spear—and sliced its head clean off. The kid had good reflexes, and Dean couldn't help feeling a little proud.

Then there was a shifter and a ghoul. A couple vampires. A pair of djinn. Dean gritted his teeth; this was going to be a lot harder than he thought it would be. Oh well.

Cas could work wonders with that spear. As much as Dean hated to admit it, Cas was turning into a real hunter, and Dean wouldn't be able to hide behind the excuse that Cas was too young for this sort of thing for much longer. As Dean watched, Cas split a couple vamps right down the middle, then chopped off their heads. Atta boy.

And Sam wasn't doing too bad himself, even for an old geezer who'd be turning fifty soon. (Dean prided himself in the fact that at least _he _wasn't losing his hair like Sam was. The childish nickname "Baldy" was really starting to fit his brother.) He had a couple silver knives up his sleeves, which was perfect for dealing with shifters and ghouls.

And Dean had a shotgun and an angel blade. They were a good team, prepared for basically anything Crowley could throw at them, and even though it was just the three of them against an army, they were doing pretty well for themselves, all things considered.

It was all going according to plan, right down to the part where there were too many monsters for them to deal with. Sam hadn't pulled out the Colt for that very reason—it was still tucked in his boot, still waiting to be used. And if Mrs. Tran's disguising spell was any good (of course it was good; there was almost nothing that woman did that wasn't studied and perfected to the letter, even when the light wiccans usually drew power from had dimmed since the Gates closed), it would stay that way until they were ready.

Dean still hated this plan, though. He had hoped that maybe they could just stick with Plan A and fight their way to Crowley's front door, but when he saw Sam go down, then Cas, he knew it was a losing fight. Plan B, then.

Some vamp hit him head-on and knocked him flat on his back. Dean tucked Cas's blade into his coat with one hand and, with the other, tried to cut off this one's head. But then his shoulders were pinned, and Dean cried out when he felt teeth digging into his neck.

Yeah, this was definitely not part of the plan.

Dean felt dizzy, but then the vamp who had flirted with Cas pulled her friend off of Dean. "Not yet," she reminded him, but he just grinned back at her with bloodstained teeth.

"He don't want these ones," the vamp said. "Just the kid."

"You really want to argue with me?" She drew herself up to her full height, and Dean realized she must have been the leader of their nest.

So the vampire climbed off of Dean, and his pretty partner hauled Dean to his feet. Usually, it would have taken at least two or three monsters to pin his arms and drag him along, but Dean's head was still throbbing, and he was more or less leaning on her for support instead of trying to pull away.

"Dean?" he heard Cas call. He raised his head just enough to show Cas that, yes, he was still alive and at least semi-conscious, but when he did, he saw that Cas was pinned between the two djinn.

Dean shook his head at Cas. Now was not the time to get cold feet. They were almost inside, and once they got in, they could put the rest of their plan into action. Dean set his jaw and let himself be dragged inside.

Stick to the plan.


	17. Chapter 17

A/N: I would just like to publicly think all the people who have sent me messages and reviews wishing me a happy holidays and encouraging me in my writing even while I'm on break. Y'all are all so amazing!

Disclaimer: I don't own Supernatural or any of the related rights.

...

Dean didn't look so good.

Cas had seen him through hunts before, both in this life and in his previous one, but now Dean was getting old, and he couldn't take a hit like he used to. And that was what worried Cas.

He could feel the djinns' fingernails digging into his arms, and they even drew blood, but still he didn't try to pull away. Not yet. Not until they had Crowley in their sights.

And it wasn't long before they faced him. The djinns dragged him into the hut and threw him inside. He landed hard on his hands and heard two thuds as Sam and Dean landed next to him. Sam struggled to his feet, but Dean just barely managed to sit up and lean against the wall. He was holding his neck; he had lost a lot of blood.

"Hello, boys." Crowley was sitting on the side of his desk, his head tilted to one side. He wasn't even smiling triumphantly, just sort of staring at them.

"One day you're gonna find a better greeting than that," Dean said. He might have been drained, but he hadn't lost any of his old wit.

"It hasn't gotten old yet," Crowley said. He swept out his hands as he looked over the three hunters. "Well, now, don't you look . . . old."

"Shut up," Dean said. He groaned as he tried to find his way to his feet.

"Oh, no, do please sit down," Crowley said. "Don't strain yourself." Something powerful in his eyes flashed, and Dean crashed against the wall and slid down into a sitting position. Cas felt the same power strike him, and he found himself pinned against the wall, too—along with Sam.

Okay, this was going to be harder than they imagined.

"Tell me, what was the plan, gents? Just waltz in here and try to kill me all by your lonesome?" Crowley smiled down at Cas, paused in his pacing. "How's my least favorite little angel?"

"Not so little anymore," Cas pointed out; it was always annoying when Dean—or anyone else, for that matter—treated him like he was still a kid.

"I see that," Crowley said. He smiled as he looked Cas over, and Cas grimaced.

"See, what I'm wondering is how you got your little posse here to cooperate," Dean said. "I may be wrong, but I don't remember you being on friendly terms with most of the monsters 'round here. In fact, I'm pretty sure you tortured most of 'em."

Cas frowned. Careful, Dean.

"King of the Crossroads," Crowley said, as if that was explanation enough. He tilted his head to one side. "Besides, if there's one thing that unites a motley crew, it's a common enemy. You Winchesters have certainly been doing your best to drive their kind to extinction. It's a self-preservation thing, really. The enemy of my enemy isn't worth killing for at least another day—or so they saying goes."

"Please tell me you're not gonna talk us to death," Dean said from the floor. He was talking through his teeth now, so Cas knew he was struggling. "I get bored, and I'm old, so I get tired easy, too."

Crowley turned his attention back to Dean. "You just sit there and look pretty," he said, and when Dean tried to open his mouth again, no sound came out. It must have been a simple spell; Cas had seen Crowley do it to Ben before, and now Dean—and Crowley didn't look drained at all. Then, he turned to Sam as if seeing him for the first time. "Ah," he said, "moose." He glanced up at Sam's balding head. "Shaved moose," he amended.

Sam just glared at Crowley.

"I really am curious. Did you think I wouldn't be protected? Were you planning on waltzing in here and shooting me full of rock salt? Casting some kind of spell?" Crowley laughed. "I thought you'd run out of tricks to try."

Sam and Cas were both silent of their own accord, while Dean—who had already been stricken dumb—just glared.

"You'd really think you boys would learn," Crowley said. "Took you just a few years to start and end an entire Apocalypse, but it's been a couple decades and you still haven't beat me."

"It's easy to beat those who think they are all-powerful," Cas said. (He was hoping to keep Crowley talking so Dean and Sam could get a better vantage point.) "But those who know their limits guard themselves closer."

"Words of wisdom from a Fallen angel?" Crowley laughed. "But I guess you'd know about egomaniacal foes, wouldn't you?"

Cas narrowed his eyes. He really was never going to live that down, was he?

"Right. Well, down to business." Crowley clapped his hands together and rubbed them. He turned to Sam and Dean. "Time to squish a couple flies."

Dean's eyes widened and Sam struggled against the spell holding him back, but it was Cas who spoke up. "Don't you hurt them," he said. He hadn't meant to, but it just sort of slipped out. And in his teenager voice, it just sounded worse, not at all threatening and demanding like he had meant it to sound.

Crowley turned to Cas, one eyebrow raised. He just kept looking at Cas, not at the Winchesters, as he flexed his hand and Dean was suddenly pressed up against the wall. Sam shouted his brother's name, but he was stuck just as fast. Dean tried not to betray how much it hurt, but Cas recognized his hurt face. He'd seen it often enough. "Or what?" Crowley asked.

That was just about as good of a setup as he could have asked for. Cas smiled down at the ground and laughed, letting the adrenaline run through him until his shoulders shook. It was supposed to be disconcerting, and judging by the way Crowley paused and stared at him, it was working.

"What?" Crowley asked.

Cas shook his head, still looking at the ground. It was good, he knew, that he had been stuck in human form for so long. How many times were people fooled by the exterior? There was an ex-angel of the Lord inside this shape. He'd leveled cities before. He was once Uriel's superior—Uriel, who helped Cas with half the plagues in Egypt. And they thought he was just another hunter.

Cas started the chanting in Enochian. The room started to shake, and Crowley frowned. "No," he said. "You're human now."

Cas just kept right on chanting. Crowley's hold on the Winchesters crumbled, and Dean slid to the floor. He was dazed, but he'd be alright. Sam, on the other hand, had his hand in his right boot, pulling the Colt out.

He'd started to piece this plan together when he was barely older than three, when Dean had kept Crowley at bay with one of his Enochian spells. He hadn't recognized at the time what made Dean look so powerful, but there was still so much pull, so much light in those words. He remembered that Anna used to remind them that there was power in a single word, but he hadn't ever really believed her.

The building started to shake. The lights flickered. And Cas couldn't stop smiling.

The joke was, of course, that this wasn't a very powerful spell. Really, the only thing it could do was keep Crowley there. He had seen Dean do it when he was very little, and now he was doing it himself. The lights flickering and the building shaking? Well, they had a little help from a certain djinn who remembered what Crowley had done to her friends. (It was nice, actually, to be the one exploiting other people's mistakes, not the one whose past was coming back to haunt him.)

But Crowley was sufficiently spooked, and Cas knew it. He grinned as he saw Crowley's face go from cool and confident as he thought he could just teleport himself away to slightly panicked when he realized he couldn't go anywhere.

Crowley was worried, so he pulled all of his power out of hurting the Winchesters and focused it on Cas instead. Cas could feel something sharp in the pit of his stomach, something unpleasant that he knew he was going to have to deal with later, but he kept right on chanting. He was just repeating the spell over and over again, and even though it did nothing but keep Crowley pinned and worry him, it was definitely working as a distraction technique.

Cas risked a glance over at the Winchesters. Sam seemed to be doing okay; he was just about ready with the Colt. But Dean was barely holding onto consciousness, and he definitely didn't have the angel blade ready.

When this was over, Cas was going to have to say "I told you so." He didn't get to do that very often, and he was already relishing the idea.

Okay, new plan. Cas was just going to have to try a different approach.

He let himself falter in the chanting. It wasn't really a problem; he could have kept going for hours, and his voice didn't hurt him that much. But he let it happen so Crowley thought he had the upper hand. _Throw me_, he thought, as if that would help. And maybe it did.

Crowley, when he realized Cas's hold on him was faltering, straightened up. "Knew you were bluffing," he said. He reached out with his hand, and Cas felt his head hit the ceiling before he went crashing into the opposite wall—much closer to Dean this time.

It had to look real, Cas knew. He pulled himself to his knees and crawled over to Dean, pretending to check his vitals—his pulse was fine, actually, if a little weak, but he would pull through if they got out of there soon. Cas's hands found the inside pockets of Dean's jackets, and he saw the realization light up behind wrinkled, green eyes.

And then Cas had the angel blade in hand. And Sam had the Colt. They weren't taking any chances on Crowley—they weren't just going to hope that one or the other would do. The plan only worked if they attacked the angel inside and also tried the Colt, since they had all experienced firsthand something that could not be killed with those magic bullets. And this had to be a sure thing. They were getting sick of fighting Crowley.

Sam fired, and Cas threw with pinpoint precision.

Crowley could see it coming, though. He had seen the Colt and the blade. And he probably would have left if Cas had not started up his chanting the minute he had the blade in hand. There was no escape for Crowley—not this time.

But there was no escape for the three of them, either.

Crowley, after all, could see it coming. And when he realized what was happening, he gave Cas such a grin that he knew it was going to be a mess. And then Crowley sucked in a huge gulp of air, tilted his head towards the sky, and even thought Cas was no longer an angel, even his human flesh could feel the sting of power, of electricity. Crowley was casting one last spell.

And so by the time the bullet from the Colt hit its mark, by the time the angel blade had embedded itself in Crowley's heart, the explosion had already started.


	18. Chapter 18

A/N: I've had the last three chapters of this written since the airport, but I've just been updating every day because I reread them for typos at night when the rest of my family is asleep cuz we changed timezones. :) Anyway, that's how I'm able to keep updating! But this one's almost done and I've got a new Supernatural project in the works (which will be updated on a weird timetable, since I'm starting a whole bunch of real world stuff soon), so this isn't the last you've seen of me!

Anyway, this is NOT the last chapter. There's one more. I have a thing about epilogues. Also, I have a thing about symmetry. So, the last chapter of this part is from Sam's POV, like the last chapter of Part One. Yay!

Disclaimer: I still don't own any of the rights to Supernatural.

...

When Sam woke up, everything hurt.

He leaned his head back for a while, just taking in how much it hurt. He could hardly feel anything because of the pounding in his head at first, but now that he was coming back, the pounding gave way to aching and creaking, and he couldn't stop the gasp.

He pushed himself up on his elbows, surveying the damage. The whole shack was blown to pieces, and he knew it wouldn't be long before any of the monsters that hadn't been blown apart came looking for survivors.

For that matter, how _had _they survived?

Sam felt a sharp stinging in his forehead, and he sucked air in through his teeth, bringing his hand up to feel what was the matter. He was not surprised to feel blood. He was surprised by how much of it there was.

His vision was blurry as he struggled to sit back up. He grunted and groaned, but finally, he managed to sit up. Everything spun.

His hearing hadn't quite come back to him yet. He could mostly hear ringing, but he could also hear something else, soft and muffled. Like the high whine of an engine compared to the screech of the ringing in his ears. But through the deep thumping of his heartbeat in his ears and throat, he could discern something else: gasping.

The pitch of his hearing was finally coming down as the spots in front of his eyes cleared, and he realized that the high-pitched whine was actually much lower, and more guttural. It was a sound somewhere between choking and crying, and that's where the gasping came in.

Sam realized what was happening before his body could quite respond to the urgency, and he slipped over himself as he struggled to his feet. There was dust and debris everywhere, and he couldn't make out where Dean and Cas were—he could see the sheen of leather and the tails of a newly purchased trench coat, but there was too much debris in between them.

"Dean!" he shouted. He tried to dig through the rubble, and some of it fell on top of him. He tried to shield himself, but his arms were tired, and some of it got in his eyes and nose.

"Sammy?"

Sam gulped. His brother's voice sounded hoarse and tired. How long had Sam been out? How long had Dean been conscious? What was happening on the other side of that drywall? "Dean, you okay?"

"Sammy, I'm pinned. I can't move," Dean said. But there was something else, something besides pain. Dean's voice warbled, and Sam dared not ask.

"I'm coming," Sam said. He tried to dig faster. His eyes were watering from all the dust flying up at him as he did, but if Dean was hurt . . . .

"Sammy," Dean said again with that awful voice. "Sammy, I thought you were gone."

Sam swallowed. He should have realized. Dean could take a hit, could give and take in the torture game, but if someone he loved was in danger, all bets were off.

And it would have been worse this time. There were no demon deals to be made, no angels to call on for a miraculous resurrection. What's dead stayed dead these days. He and Dean had always felt invincible before, but these last few years . . . .

"It's okay, Dean," he said. More debris fell on him. "We won."

"I don't . . . ." Dean seemed to be searching for the right words. "We didn't . . . ."

"Dean?"

"It's Cas," Dean said.

Sam started digging even faster. He had probably torn something in his shoulder. Everything was falling, and now he was digging with his eyes closed to keep everything out. "Can you see him?"

"Yeah."

"Is he okay?"

Silence.

Sam finally broke through the rubble; he felt his hand push through to open air. He cleared it aside with long sweeps of his arm. "Dean," he said, reaching out into the space, "we've got to get out of here. Where are you?"

"A little to the left."

Sam managed to get his shoulders through, then his legs. And there was Dean—or, at least, there was Dean's head and shoulders. He was pinned under half of a wall that had fallen over, and he just had one arm free, trying to push the wall off of him. He looked pale, tired. He was bleeding, and his jacket was in pieces—bits of which had made their way into the rubble.

Sam expected Dean to at least give him some kind of witty greeting or relieved smile when Sam came to his rescue. But Dean wasn't even looking at Sam anymore. His eyes were fixed on a point behind Sam.

Sam turned.

Cas had been right at the center of the blast; he had been completely unprotected. He had apparently been trying to shield them from the worst of it; he looked much worse than Sam and Dean did, and he hadn't been that much closer. Sam checked for a pulse.

"Is he breathing?" Dean asked. His voice sounded strained, like he was struggling to stay conscious.

Sam frowned. He turned around and crossed the room. "We have to get out of here," he said again. He grabbed one corner of the wall and pushed, while Dean did what he could from his awkward position.

Finally, the wall managed to move, and Dean slipped out from underneath it before Sam let it come crashing down. Sam watched as his brother lay out on the floor, his eyes closed and his breathing barely controlled. He was trying to compose himself.

"You okay?" Sam asked. He leaned down to offer Dean a hand up, but Dean pushed him away.

"Don't baby me," Dean said. He tried to stand, but his legs wouldn't cooperate, and he instead crumpled to the ground with an exasperated grunt.

Sam slipped his arm underneath Dean's shoulders. He didn't need to examine Dean's leg to know it was broken; he could see bone. But Dean hadn't registered that yet; he was still staring at the remains of a trench coat—once brown and now bright red.

"Come on, Dean. We're sitting ducks the longer we stay here. We need to get you to a hospital."

"Cas, too."

Sam frowned. "Dean . . . ." How to even begin?

Dean just stared at Sam. He didn't say anything, but Sam could see the dullness, the wall his brother was building. He had already cried about this before, but he wouldn't do it in front of Sam. He never did.

It took them a long while to dig their way out of the house—even longer because Dean wasn't hanging on to consciousness very well, and Sam wasn't sure how much longer he could last. He'd lost a lot of blood. But Sam still had the Colt, and he pointed it at anything that moved. No matter that they had only packed six bullets in the thing. He was going to take out the first five monsters that tried anything.

By the time they reached the Impala, Dean was nothing but dead weight. Sam bundled him into the backseat, then ran back to the shack for one last thing.

He pulled the lighter out of his pocket. He'd grabbed it from Dean's jacket when he put him in the car, and now, he was going to give Cas a chance to rest—just in case he had decided to stick around. (Sam wouldn't put it past Cas to try and stay behind, not only because he, like Bobby, would want to stay and help the Winchesters, but because Cas was so terrified that nothing he did would ever be enough to keep him out of Hell, so why would he move on?) He threw the lighter into the rubble, and before long, the whole place was ablaze.

Sam dragged himself back to the Impala and floored it with everything that car had to give. There was a hospital near the outskirts of town; he had seen it on the way to Crowley's hideout, and when he pulled in, the nurses and doctors were there immediately.

Sam wanted to go in with Dean, but the doctors held him back. They wanted to examine him, too; Sam had forgotten that, covered in blood and rubble, he probably looked just as bad as Dean did. They wanted to check him for concussion, to stitch the head wound that had turned most of his neck red as the blood dripped down the back of his head. They wanted to question him: how did this happen? But Sam didn't want to be helped or questioned. He just wanted to be with Dean. His brother was hurt, and Sam needed to be there.

But, of course, Sam wasn't able to convince the doctors, and when the adrenaline rush finally subsided and he nearly fainted, he had to give in.

It was hours before they let him out again, and the first thing he did was find out where Dean's room was. He could hear his heart pounding far too loud; he had never been comfortable in hospitals, and it was especially hard to see Dean in one. He'd seen Dean in too many, to be honest.

The doctors didn't let him in to see Dean at first, but after another hour of waiting (not so patiently) outside Dean's room, they finally caved and let him in as long as he promised not to disturb Dean too much. His body had been through a lot of trauma, and for a man of Dean's age, it was not an easy thing to recover from.

"Dean?" He poked his head in the door.

Physically, Dean was going to be okay. Already the color had returned to Dean's face, and it was evident even from the way he held himself that he felt better. But Sam recognized the blank, vacant stare. He'd seen if before in his brother's unguarded moments after Dad died, after Bobby, after they thought Cas was dead, after Purgatory. But those were just glimpses of a moment. This was the full expression, unhidden and unreserved. It was crushing to watch Dean flip through the channels on the television they mounted in his room, just staring and not seeing.

It took Dean a full ten seconds to realize that Sam was in the room with him. He looked up, nodded at Sam, then looked back at the TV again. "Heya, Sammy," he said weakly.

"How you holding up?" he asked.

"I'll live."

Sam frowned. This wasn't how things were supposed to go. They were supposed to kill Crowley and then go back to hunting, to a normal life. Dean was supposed to live to see Cas into at least his thirties, and then Dean was supposed to die of old age, probably before Sam, just because Dean would never let Sam die on his watch. That was the future Sam had always seen for the three of them.

"Looks like it's just you and me again, huh?" Dean said hollowly. "Once they finish patching me back up, that is."

"Looks like it," Sam said. He wasn't sure what to say, how to react to Dean.

"That's how it's always been," Dean kept right on saying. "You and me and the Impala. Some things never change." Dean shook his head. "Shoulda known better than to ask for anything more."

"Dean," Sam started, but Dean turned away, and Sam knew when he was not wanted.

Well, at least Dean wasn't dying. Sam slipped back out the door and closed it behind him, frowning. This wasn't supposed to happen.

Sam made his way back to his room slowly. They'd get out of there soon, probably start right back into hunting. Dean would insist on it, something to keep his mind off of losing Cas. And after a couple years, maybe Dean would start laughing again—not the amused little snort he gave when he was still raw and hurting, but the real laugh that he used to give when Cas would play air guitar. Maybe Sam could get him to laugh at Garth's antics or smile at Sam's misfortune in a case. But Sam was going to get his brother through this.

They'd traverse the country—two brothers in a beat-up old Chevy Impala—saving people, hunting things, because that's what they were supposed to do.


	19. Epilogue

A/N: Thank you everyone for sticking through to the end on this thing with me. It's been a wild first ride, and I'll be back for seconds tomorrow night with a brand new story ;)

Disclaimer: I still own nothing related to Supernatural. All rights are retained by their rightful owners.

...

Cas remembered this.

He couldn't have been more then nine years old when Dean first started teaching him about cars and engines, how to fix the Impala, that sort of thing. (Though Dean never let him practice on the actual Impala until he was good enough that Dean trusted him not to totally wreck the thing.)

So when Dean pulled over and popped the hood, Cas had slid out of the front seat and around to see what Dean was doing, to see if he knew what was wrong and if he could help.

But the damage was minor, just some residual ectoplasm clogging up the engine after their last case. Dean handed Cas a rag, and they both set to work wiping the green goo out of the nooks and crannies of the Impala.

"You got a favorite album?" Dean asked suddenly.

Cas looked up at him. He had been covered in grease from trying to reach the back parts, though now that this was just a memory for Cas, he was relatively clean. "What do you mean?" he asked.

"I mean, I play the same ones over and over. Which one do you like best?"

Cas had really given this some thought. He was aware, of course, that Christmas was coming and that they were going to meet up with Sam after the case was over to find a Christmas tree for their motel room. Dean must have been thinking about presents, and so this was a serious question to consider.

"I don't know," Cas said at last. "Maybe Aerosmith?"

Dean just grinned at him and went back to cleaning the car. They had most of the goo out in just a few minutes, at least enough that Dean was comfortable driving her back to the motel where he could work on a more in-depth cleaning. He motioned Cas back in the car, and Cas hopped in the backseat—he couldn't sit in the front back then because he wasn't tall enough.

Cas was excited now. Dean had never missed a Christmas for as long as he could remember, and sometimes even Ben managed to show up to one of their get-togethers if he was feeling particularly charitable. (Cas had always saved enough money from the cash Dean gave him for candy and food to buy Ben a present, just in case. He was wonderfully naïve back then.)

He and Dean pulled into the motel, and there was Sam, grinning and laughing. And Ben was there, too. He wasn't grinning as easily as Sam was, but he seemed pleased enough to see Cas. Even Uncle Benny managed to get there, and it must have been a real fight between Sam and Dean to get that set up. But Cas liked Uncle Benny back then—something the now-Cas could hardly understand—and so Sam caved. "For the kid."

They sat down for dinner and everything. Uncle Benny was a fantastic cook, and they had a very Cajun-style Christmas turkey and dressings. Dean brought the beer, of course, but he was also in charge of keeping Cas occupied while the others set this up. Cas knew all these things now, but here, living in this memory, it was like reliving the sweet surprise all over again.

And at the end of dinner, Cas ran outside to get his presents out of the trunk of the Impala. He didn't care so much what his adopted family got him as much as he cared about seeing their faces when he handed them the presents that he had meticulously wrapped himself. An old book for Sam—one about the different pagan gods that he found in a bookstore while he was waiting for Dean to get back from a hunt. Fishing bait for Benny, who was living on the coast last he heard. And for Ben, a charm he put together himself, using Sam's old books and Mrs. Tran's materials. (She had been very helpful when he told her he wanted to make Ben's present all by himself.)

Everyone opened their presents and told Cas that he was so thoughtful, that they loved it. Sam picked him up in a hug, and Uncle Benny ruffled his hair. Ben even opened the little package and stared at it for a long time, realizing how much time and effort had gone into it. The now-Cas could see that it was rough around the edges, obviously made by little fingers, but Ben tucked it into his shirt pocket as proudly as if it was a golden pocket watch. He knelt down in front of Cas and wrapped him in a hug that made Cas feel warm and loved, the way he used to before Lisa died.

And then Dean unwrapped his, and he immediately rushed over to Cas to pick him up in a bone-crushing hug. "Thanks, kiddo," he whispered.

Cas had put the most work into that one. He had picked out the journal itself in the old bookstore when he found Sam's present, but he had already taken news clippings from Sam and Dean's old cases and pasted them into the front, as well as a hand-written note telling Dean how much it meant to have him around and wishing him a Merry Christmas.

Cas didn't say anything, just let Dean hug him until it wasn't decent to be hugging anymore, and Dean pulled away, trying to act like he wasn't as affected as he was. He grinned as he handed Cas the CD-shaped present. "Merry Christmas, kiddo," he said.

And then Cas was standing in an ally. Dean was standing beside him—a much younger Dean, so this must have been a memory from his first life. Dean was doubled over with laughter, and Sam was just glaring at the two of them.

Cas remembered this, too.

Dean patted Cas on the back. "That was excellent, Cas," he said, still laughing and wiping away tears.

Cas grinned back at Dean. "That was what you wanted?"

"Perfect!"

Cas grinned, then looked back over at Sam, who was trying very hard to keep glaring at them, but his smile kept poking through. He was completely covered in feathers—head to toe—and he still had bits of honey in his hair.

"Dude, you should have seen your face," Dean said through gasps. He was finally coming back down from the high of laughing, and he gripped his sides harder.

"No fair getting Cas involved," Sam said. "How was I supposed to see that bucket coming if you just had Cas poof it onto my head?"

"Don't be a sore loser," Dean countered.

Sam just shook his head. But all three of them were smiling. It was good to have some downtime in between cases, and since Kevin was still working on translating a lead for them, they had nothing better to do than poke and annoy each other. Dean said it would be good for Cas to learn how to pull a "real prank," and Cas had willingly obliged.

And then he was sitting on the kitchen counter. When he was three, his legs hadn't reached very far, so he liked to play with the drawers with his toes, and Lisa always hated that.

"Is Dean coming back soon?" he asked.

Lisa laughed. "I told you he'd be here in just a few minutes."

"Oh," Cas said. He looked down at the ground. "Has it been a few minutes yet?"

Lisa just laughed again and handed him the bowl. She made brownies to go with the apple pie (she always made pie when Dean came home). She handed him a rubber spatula to go with the bowl, then grabbed herself one, too. She drew a line in the remaining batter with her finger—she always left enough to make licking the bowl worth it—to show which side was his and which was hers. And they set to work licking the batter off their spatulas, scraping the sides of the bowl to get as much of it as they could.

Cas remembered that his face was completely covered in the batter by the time Dean got home, and when Dean busted through the door, announcing his arrival, Lisa had tried to wipe him clean before he jumped down off the counter to hug Dean's leg. (Well, the now-Cas just hugged the whole Dean.)

"I miss you, Dean," Cas said. "You were gone for an awful long time."

Dean ruffled Cas's hair. "Sorry, kiddo. Sammy found a nasty poltergeist in Montana, and the drive was killer!" He perked up when he saw Lisa coming. "Pie?" he asked with his flirting, sideways grin.

Lisa kissed him and laughed. "In the kitchen."

"Did you bring me anything?" Cas asked.

"No, I forgot," Dean said, but his smile was so broad that Cas knew he was lying.

"Dean!"

"I mean, I didn't have time. There was so much else to do—"

"Dean." Cas put his hands on his hips and tried to do his best impression of Lisa, who was the only person Cas knew for sure could put Dean in his place.

Dean laughed out loud, then took a little package out from behind his back. "I thought you might want to try it on first," Dean said.

It was a little, brown trench coat with buttons down the front. Cas's entire face lit up when he saw it. (The now-Cas smiled, too. He had almost forgotten about that coat. He hardly went anywhere without it for almost a year before he stopped believing in angels.) "Is that for me?"

"Do you see anyone else this size?" Dean asked. He laughed as Cas immediately put it on, holding his batter-splattered spatula up like a weapon. "It's a pretty good likeness," he said.

"I forgot about that coat. I could never get you out of it, not even to go to sleep. I think you wore it for a week straight."

Cas started at the new voice behind him. It was Dean's voice, but younger, restored to its thirty-year-old glory in Heaven. He turned, slowly, to see that he was right.

"Dean?"

"Hey, Cas," Dean said. He was leaning with his arms folded against the kitchen wall. "Told you I'd get you here safe."


End file.
